#for the first time it really felt like he was speaking Swedish as a speaker and not as a learner it was super cool

[linguenuvolose]

One of my mom’s cousins kept gushing about how cute me and my boyfriend are together and <33 it was very sweet

[reapers-carino]

You’re back! Can I request Sigma and fem S/O relaxing in each other’s arms either after a mission or after he gets out of talon. maybe a little angst and maybe a lot of fluff

Siebren had been stolen from you.

You both were astrophysicists that worked as co-researchers at The Hague, the classic story of colleagues turning into close companions and then clumsily and casually falling into love. Your relationship wasn’t like the vids, however. No, it was...comfortable. Eccentric. Full of excited hypotheses or bickering on theories, debating on what experiments you should run next, late nights at the lab together morphing into slow dancing and takeout while systems tested and calculated. You gently prodded the man to sleep at your apartment and not the in his office on a cot, coyly explaining at the time a well rested scientist ran much better work…and you had a California king. He relinquished soon enough. It had taken a while for your fellow researchers and lab assistants to find out; you nor Siebren flashy or loud about relationships, preferring a brief kiss on the cheek and hand holding to speak as loud as an official declaration. Once the news had swept through the lab, several of your colleagues joked that you had pulled the older man into your orbit, Siebren always answering back affectionately that it may be true because ‘you shined as bright as Sirius’. It still made a hot blush burn up your face and down your chest when you thought about it; the way he unabashedly showered you in love and affection constantly renewing the butterflies you had felt when you first fell into love with the man.

The day Siebren had made his breakthrough, the two of you had been cuddling in bed, the near seven foot tall man completely wrapped around you, you both enjoying the feel of each others skin after a shared post-coital shower. Quiet classical music played from the speakers as you had cuddled further back into the man, the hum of his voice like a purr against your back as his hands idly did mental calculations on your thigh, skin tingling at his gentle touching. You felt him pause, head tilting up to ask him if he was stuck and needed to talk it out but the man had gone stock still before briskly sitting up and speedily going through the solution to successfully subvert the universe’s pull on gravity so that it could be harnessed. Your brow had furrowed as you went over what he had said, calculations flying through your own mind before your eyes had widened and you threw yourself at the man. You kissed him and called him brilliant and then demanded he immediately write all of that down. From there it was a whirlwind of gaining government grants to approvals for him to study at the International Space Station until the day it came for him to say goodbye. He had pressed kisses against the top of your head, your temples, your cheeks and chin and nose before ever getting to your lips, promising to video call you as soon as he had made it and every night after that.

 And he had been a man of his word. The two of you would talk every night for at least an hour although often more, recording the calls so you both could go over notes or suggestions or calculations the other gave or just to hear one anothers’ voices when the distance became too much. The night of the final test, Siebren had set up his camera as he always had, excitedly notating out loud every step he was going through so that the moment could both be recorded and all steps captured could be formally notated. You giddily watched on the holo-screen at home, dressed in one of his sleeping shirts and holding a data-pad to make any notes that weren’t directly stated. You remembered how your heart had swelled with pride and excitement, knowing he would soon be back on Earth and in your arms and celebrated for the greatest breakthrough in astrophysics since the discovery of Proxima b.

 Both of your eyes grew with wonder as the field he had perfected began to form a black hole, tears welling up in your eyes as the ball of pure black pulsated calmly. Siebren’s eyes briefly lifted to yours before dropping back down, a slow smile of amazement growing on his face as his fingers undulated, the black hole responding in turn. Tears burned in your eyes as he began to laugh, describing out loud the pressure he could feel pressing back but with a turn of the hand the field was able to contain it and pull it back. Minutes felt like eons as you watched Siebren manipulate the black hole, twisting and turning and growing and shrinking the orb until his brow furrowed hard. Electric began to crackle near the base of the containment field before Siebren began to yell worriedly.

 ‘Density! Mass! Momentum! It is too much to hold onto!’

 ‘This is wrong! The field is failing!’

 You screamed for him as you watched the orb pulsate then split, panic settling in as objects around the room began to lift and fall around Siebren, the man’s voice rapidly switching between yelling and babbling in Dutch and English and Swedish and German. Devices that weighed several tonnes began to float in the air as if they were as light as feathers, listing left and right behind the man as his scream got louder and softer. Hands shaking you watched helplessly as whatever the camera was attached to became undone and started to float, Siebren going still before his eyes lifted to the screen and locked with your eyes.

 ‘Mijn universum’

 Sound cut from Siebren’s side, the camera still recording as objects kept rising and falling, only stopping when it appeared security ran in and grabbed the man. All you saw before the connection was cut was Siebren’s lab bathed in emergency lights, everything that had once been floating falling unceremoniously to the ground with something crushing the camera. With your heart slamming in your chest you called the emergency line given to families, explaining to them what you had seen, even sending them the recording that you had of that night. They placated you with saying the man was undergoing treatment for injuries sustained during the experiment, refusing to show him to you or give you any detail of what actually was wrong before pronouncing he had succumbed to his wounds. You refused to believe it, remembering how the man had looked when you had last seen him; uninjured but confused, rambling but still physically sound. You tried showing the video to anyone who would watch, refusing to believe the official reports of his death but you were ignored, mocked. You were a respected member of your field but how could you know the affects of a black hole on the human body? What reason would the government have to lie about this? It was sad you had lost someone dear to you but ‘you had to use your brain’.

 You were eventually driven out of your field, mocked and pitied for being overcome with grief and ‘losing all grasp on logic’ due to your loss of Siebren. Despite all this, you never gave up hope, clinging desperately to the idea that the man was still alive, the ridiculous unscientific notion of ‘the heart knows’ spurring you along. For years you came up empty handed, the near decade of searching weighing heavily on your shoulder before the universe finally gave you a bone. A former university colleague extended a hand, Moira O’Deorain, saying that she believed your plight and that she would love to help you…as long as you could help her in return. You had accepted immediately, asking no questions of the who or what, utterly relieved that someone finally believed you and that the burden wouldn’t be one you had to bare all on your own. Even when you found out the organization was Talon, you didn’t back down, jaded by the fact that so much of the world had turned their back on you when Siebren had needed them. If they could help you find him or find some semblance of closure, anything they asked of you would be more than worth it.

 You had been tasked with designing a battle suit per their specifications; one capable of withstanding a constant flux in gravity, something that could convert kinetic energy into a body shield, and one that could stand an immense amount of pressure, possibly greater than that found at the depths of the ocean. You worked diligently, the suit familiar to the one you had been tasked to create years prior with Siebren in preparation for his own experimentation in space, your heart aching as you put in fail-safes that could have possibly protected or saved him from harm. You kept your head down, never really introduced to any other personnel in Talon other than the science department and only catching glimpses of the more infamous faces of the organization. Genuinely you didn’t care to make friends, you wanted to fulfill your end of the bargain so that they could fulfill their own. It took several months with the technology they had available, but you had finished the preliminary design of the suit, telling Moira you simply needed to tailor the suit to wearer and it would be completed.

 She had responded with a cryptic, ‘He will be liberated soon enough.’

 You had thought nothing of it, expecting another jailbreak similar to that of Akande Ogundimu, working quietly in your lab to tweak and update the suit so whomever wore it could make no complaints. They didn’t waste good technology on non-intellectuals so at the bare minimum it had to pass your stringent standards. Your back had been turned when they had brought him in, classical music floating through your lab softly, helping you focus on tweaking the pin on one of the minicontrollers minutely to correctly an insulation and cooling issue. The rasping voice of the ‘Reaper’ began to chip at your concentration, your hands stilling briefly as he snapped orders to bring him inside. You had let out a long suffering sigh, placing your instruments down and began to pull off the magnifying headband to face whoever was entering your lab before freezing at the sound of one voice.

 “Th-that melody…where am I?”

 You remembered it felt like you had been punched in the chest, every ounce of air stolen from you as you ripped the head lamp off and stared at the door with wild, tear-filled eyes. Just pass the doorway, flanked by three of Talon foot soldiers behind and the Reaper in front was Siebren. Somehow he had stayed the same and yet had changed so much. The man was dressed in what looked like an orange jumpsuit, several emblems denoting him as ‘SUBJECT Σ’, wrists and ankles adorned with chainless shackles. Augmentations had been carved into his face; his cheekbones and forehead and temples now adorned with metal that made your heart ache, wondering how much pain he was in when they were inserted. His face was still his but…his cheeks had become somewhat sunken and swollen bags resting beneath his dull, spiritless blue eyes. But what had shocked you the most is how the man was floating at least a meter off of the ground, all surrounding him seemingly unconcerned by his ability to completely subvert Newton’s law of gravitation. Stumbling forward, you remembered when Siebren eyes fell to yours, the man’s eyes going round as he spoke your name barely above a whisper. He dropped to the ground and when you surged forward, he took you into his arms and you held onto each other as if either let go the other would float away.

 And this is how you both found yourself working for Talon. They had tethered you both to the organization by using the other as collateral. Siebren, or Sigma as they preferred to call him, would never leave if he could not leave with you and you were a grounding source for Siebren and would never leave his side after your time apart. Neither one of you were fighters or soldiers, you were scientists, but something had changed in Siebren after years of isolated experimentation and repeated exposure to his new found abilities. Battle was an experiment and while not always preferred, he would do what he must to keep testing the new hypotheses that both he and you came up with.

 Today, at least, the fighting was over.

 You stood on the flight deck, watching as the hovercraft began to touch the ground, pushing off of the stair railing that you had been leaning on. The team had recently moved to another base in Australia, the Outback providing swaths of land that was ignored by the country’s government, Talon quickly creating a state of the art facility within a year. Plumes of reddish brown dust expanded outwards as the ship doors opened, the half dozen or so foot soldiers walking out soon followed by the ‘A-team’. You gave a respectful ‘good evening’ or ‘hello’ to those that passed, warmly squeezing Moira’s shoulder before walking past them and towards the straggler.

 “Welcome home”, you said warmly, a genuine grin creasing your face as you looked up into Sigma’s eyes. The small frown that had become his neutral expression melted away as his eyes met yours, the tension in the man’s body seemingly melted away. Slowly he went from floating a meter off the ground to hovering a few centimeters off of the ground. Taking one of his gloved hands in yours you let him lead the way. “The mission was a success?”

 “Mmm I believe so”, he stated, humming low in his throat as he briefly recalled. His hand gently squeezed yours as the two of you walked through the bay doors. “It appears that I may be able to increase the range of Gravitic Flux but it seems to require further experimentation.”

 You bobbed your head in agreement, mentally notating that for training later. But for now, you wanted to make sure he could unwind after being away for the last few days. Lacing your hands with his you began to take charge as Sigma’s feet finally touched the ground, turning and smiling mischievously at him as you tugged him through the halls.

 “Woah”, he huffed out, a quiet chuckle following his words as you tugged him along. “What’s the rush…and we’ve walked pass the lab.”

 “I know my love”, you hummed back as you kept marching forward, turning towards the personnel quarters and your shared room. “I have a surprise for you.”

 “Oh then please lead on”, he answered, a quiet lilt in his voice as he began to float once more, stumbling as the load of him got even lighter.

 Turning you shot him a playful glare as you practically skipped down the hall, turning until you got to the ‘A-teams’ quarters, the master’s sized bedrooms a treat for the eccentric members of the battle team. For a terrorist organization constantly on the run, it was odd how their pockets seemingly never ran dry and how they never had to ‘rough’ it in anything less than a four star hotel. Still, you didn’t peek too far behind the curtain, happy to fulfill the role of nothing more than a personal scientist and to reap the benefits that came with being the ‘Sigma’s girl’.

 You hummed quietly as you pressed your hand to the biometric scanner, twisting on your heel and pulling Siebren by both hands down grinning wide as you stared up at him. The light had returned to his cerulean eyes, his cheeks no longer sallow or sunken but filled by months of meals you personally requested of the kitchen staff and your own clumsily made stroopwafels. He seemed….happy again. You didn’t know what the government had done to him while he had been locked away but the hacker woman, Sombra was her name, had given you some details and it seemed he had been isolated away from others for most of his time. Once he was brought on to the base and allowed to interact with others, to talk and move freely and actually be human, the man you fell in love with came back to you piece by piece.

 Siebren floated lower, pulling your hands back so they could carefully wrap around his body and gently grabbing you by the waist to float you the rest of the way to the room.

 “So what do you have planned this time mijn schatje”, he inquired, one of his bushy brows lifting inquisitively. You giggled quietly as you lifted on shoulder in playful innocence.

 “You’ll have to open the door and see”, you answered lackadaisically, knowing the ever curious man wouldn’t hesitate to find the answers that he wanted the answers to.

 He pressed you closer to him, his arm locking around your waist so he could use his free hand to press to the biometric scanner on the door, the man pausing for a moment as the scent of food escaped.

 “Is that…”

 “Mhmm”, you answered, leaning up to place a gentle kiss on the underside of his chin as he looked in the room in astonishment before looking down at you with pure adoration. “I know it’s summer here but I wanted to give you a touch of winter from home. I don’t know how but the omnic chef, I think her name is Tulip, was able to get her hand on actual rookworst. So I asked her to make some boerenkoolstamppot and oliebol when I heard you two were on your way back.”

 You and Tulip had made sure to put the meals under one of those special serving platters that suspended the meal with hardlight; the meal still piping hot and the dessert protected from condensation. A grin grew on your face as you soaked in the look on his face, the man slowly pulling his eyes from the food an down to you.

 “Mijn universum”, he breathed softly, slowly lowering to the ground with you, his hands resting lightly on either side of your torso. His thumbs rubbed slow circles against your side, the pads of his gloves pressing into you slightly. “Thank you…”

 “You are more than welcome my love”, you hummed softly before taking a small half step back from him and grabbing one of his hands with both of yours. Your thumbs gently ran over the textured pads, glossing over the oppositional gravitational channeler, fingertips dancing up to gently pull it off. “Here let’s get you out of your uniform and enjoy a good winter meal. Oh, and I’ll turn on our melody.”

 “Yes that does sound lovely.”

 Siebren smiled as you hummed the chords to the song that had been stuck in his head for years, the melody that had played in the lab when the singularity had happened that had given him a glance into the future. It had played on loop, obsessively taunting him with a beautiful, comforting tune, so familiar and yet so far away, comfort teasing him in it’s harmony but never quite settling. This had been the first song he heard when walking into your lab, the first song he had when he had been liberated, the first song when his universe began to come back together. The AI of the room took over, it soft, feminine voice ringing out.

 “Now playing, ‘My Universe’.”

[hollerace]

Mrs. Wahlstrom--Feb 5, 2021

How do you get into a fight the first time you see someone? When you’re the ripe old age of six? That’s the way it happened with Lloyd Tichey and me. We had just moved in to Midfield Avenue. I saw a kid across the street, playing between the two garages that took up the block. I crossed the street to inspect and got pelted with a clod of dirt for my trouble. I found a hiding spot and armed myself. After a brief fusillade, I poked my head out; so did Lloyd, who said, “My mom’s got iced tea.” Within first sips, our friendship was cemented. Lloyd was younger than I, not by much. He was a bit taller (who wasn't?) and better at sports and games. The surrounding streets were our arena, with plenty of kids and fewer cars. Were moms really allowed to drive? Not in our neighborhood. It didn’t take us long to confront a common enemy. Mrs. Wahlstrom lived next to me and anointed herself the personal enemy of kids having fun. She appeared regularly in attempts to quelch our enjoyment. Some of the games could attain high volume levels, particularly kickball. The sport was similar to baseball. An inflated ball would be rolled to the “batter.” You can figure out the rest. Four bases, hits, runs, enjoyment. Wacky Wahlstrom, as we called her, used her porch as her pulpit. Fortunately for us, she was a native Swedish (we guessed) speaker. Diatribes, accompanied by boney, croney finger-points, began with, “You keeds,” followed by screechy, unintelligible syllables, accented with various avian screeches, hoots and gabbling. Since she was a grownup, we didn’t sass her back, nor did we listen to her admonitions. Occasionally, a ball would find its way onto her porch. The nearest kid would race up there to retrieve the precious piece before she could confiscate it. Lloyd Tichey (pronounced “Ticky”) feared her least. He would march right up to Mrs. Wahlstrom and face her down until she surrendered whatever she had just nicked from us. One time, during a game break, I opined, “I wonder if there was ever a Mister Wahlstrom?” Several theories ensued. Lloyd’s stance was, “There was a guy, once. He musta killed himself.” We howled. Lloyd had an older brother, Barry, who was in my grade. He was quiet, virtually tacit, forever riding his bike down to Birch Creek to fish. An even older brother (Jimmy, I think) lived elsewhere. He was wild-eyed with bushy uneven hair and given to loud forms of addressing anyone. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, TIMMY?” he would shriek as he raced from his car to the house. I never knew how to answer him. Mr. Tichey was a dapper, tanned, mustachioed man who travelled for work. His wife always looked furrowed; she seemed to worry a weathered washcloth in her hands as she walked about the neighborhood. She was followed everywhere by Baby Myra, a rotund little girl whose face needed constant swipes by her mom’s accessory. Their house smelled of cabbage. All the kids looked to Lloyd for leadership. He was a skilled organizer of games--a natural arbiter. If there was ever a problem, Lloyd seemed to rule. For a time, Dark Mark Longuiel, who lived down by The Field, started hanging around our street. He readily disagreed with anyone, and always seemed champing for a dispute. He even got mad at Ellen Botsford, who was far and away the prettiest girl who played with us. (Yes, we needed no Title IX; we just naturally went co-ed.). Lloyd Tichey got in his face. Harsh words, no blows, no Mark. As we grew, street play lost its popularity. We rarely saw Mrs. Wahlstrom. Once, when she was inching her ancient DeSoto down the driveway at a glacier’s pace, little Martin Botsford yelled, “Hey, Wacky Wahlstrom!” Lloyd immediately shut him down. “Leave her be,” he said sharply. Little Martin was already growing into quite the pain. But the little old lady seemed to fade into her dun, once-burgundy house. “She must have eighty Wiffle Balls in there,” remarked Lloyd one time. He remained an untitled leader in the ‘hood, but I was his consigliere, so to speak. Lloyd would ask me Big Questions. Many of these were about��the aforementioned Ellen Botsford.

We were approaching the age where kickball dimmed in intergender activities. Most summer evenings, we played a game of Chase. This was a sort of an offshoot of the classic pastime, but much more hiding was effected as opposed to any seeking. I was just emerging from one of my favorite lairs, behind Crabby Creiner’s shed. I just happened to spy Lloyd Tichey and Ellen Botsford sneaking out of Muldoon’s lot, which provided excellent leafy cover. They were holding hands.

Wait! What? Suddenly, the rules of every game changed. Such manual interlocking was a brave, new world to a pre-shaving Catholic boy, at once exciting and terrifying. But Lloyd and Ellen? No way! No wonder all the questions.

I guess I liked some girls. There was a brief crush on Lisa Longborg, who was our eighth-grade lunch monitor. A veritable amazon at five-seven, she would camp at Sister’s desk while we ate on days too wet for recess. I would invent reasons to approach the desk while she sat there, imperious over her bologna-on-Wonder (pencil-sharpening was a good one), managing to sneak glances at her ever-burgeoning mammarial development. I wasn’t the only boy to attempt this ruse.

There was also the exotic, raven-tressed Ann Marie Pandolfo, whose glamour faded for me when she ironed a Paul Anka image on the back of her coat. This also garnered the disapproval of The Good Sisters.

I barely had the chance to recover from this tectonic shift in my life-views when another tremor hit. Lloyd announced that his family was moving up to Northfield, a suburb some ten miles north of town.

It seems Mr. Tichey had earned some sort of promotion at work, enabling his brood to improve their lifestyles. I was forlorn at first, then resigned.

The school year was bearable (Lloyd went to the public school), but that first summer loomed dusty, empty and stifling. There was the LAG (Lark Avenue Gang) for fun, just a couple of blocks away. Games of Chase still took place. Again I hid alone, noticing that more and more couples were pairing off.

My father even drove me up to Northford once to visit. The streets had no sidewalks or phone poles, with names like Chipshot Road or Rolling Mews Lane.

The Ticheys had a big, split-level ranch, a bigger yard. As neat as it was to see Lloyd, the entire scenario loomed disjoint, foreign. Even Baby Myra seemed clean, and the  house didn’t smell of cabbage

.I didn’t realize our city was slowly draining. People, stores and services were migrating. And a friendship faded, tattered pages of memories from a book hidden away on a musty shelf.

Not long after, I went off to Campion Prep; Lloyd ended up at Northfield High. I found the drums and Lloyd did the same for basketball. Our teams never played each other, for my school kept  an urban schedule. But the Despatch would cover Lloyd’s games, where his star would shine brighter as we neared graduation.

No sports legend, I even took Ellen Botsford to the movies once. She later ditched me for a Campion U. guy who had a sleek Honda bike. Who could blame her?

When I returned home after my freshman year at Sacre Coeur College, I fielded an odd phone call. It was from Mrs. Tichey. Her voice trembled as she told me how Lloyd had joined the Marines right after graduation. This unnerved me. I had thought for sure that a hoops scholarship awaited him. I asked for a way to get in touch. She gave me an FPO address. I wrote to him in vain.

Two summers later, I was rehearsing nightly with a local band, awaiting our maiden visit to a recording studio. One evening, a long Cadillac convertible pulled up to the house. Inside was Lloyd Tichey, in civilian clothes, but looking every bit the cut-and-pressed Marine.

Surprised, I hopped in, and we drove down to Lady’s, the seawall where Park Terrace met the Sound. It was his father’s ride, but Lloyd produced some cold Schaefers.

“I’m sick of this Honor Guard, shit, Timmy,” he began. An influential state senator from Northfield had arranged for Lloyd to secure this light-duty post at the governor’s mansion in Hartford.

“But, Lloyd,” I said, “this keeps you out of the war. Easy going.”

“Bullshit. Anyone can carry a flag. I’m a Marine; I want to fight.” I saw this was no time to voice my concerns over the Viet mess we had gotten into. His anger blossomed: sharp eyes, tightened features. I felt the tension.

We drank in silence. We both knew an argument was futile. As he dropped me off, we shared a brief hug, something we had never done as kids.

Our lives, like two opposing streams, changed courses, each divining its own path, surging forward in separate worlds.The ne

xt May, I read in the paper about Operation Georgia in Viet Nam. What made me notice was that the 9th Marines were involved. Lloyd’s unit.

I didn’t get a phone call. Reading the article in the Despatch galvanized my spine. I didn’t care about the heroes in Quang Nam province. But the article did include that a Lloyd Tichey of Northford wouldn’t be returning home. His remains, however, would.

I gleaned that there would be full military honors at Quantico, but not until a viewing was scheduled here in the city.My mom had sold the house by then, but on the day of the wake, I drove down Midfield Avenue. Why? An unseen force directed me down our old street. Maybe I wasn’t that surprised to see a cab pulled up next door to my old house.

I parked and walked over to the cabbie. “What’s the fare?”

“Some Mrs. Wallstorm. Goin’ ta Wolke’s funeral parlor. Sposta wait.”

I tipped him and told him to grab a better fare. Soon, she appeared on her porch. Hunched over like a question mark, she made for the stairs. I hustled over to help her. How old could she be? She seemed ancient when we were kids. I cradled her elbow as she descended.

“I gotcha, Mrs. Wahlstrom,” I said. She finally looked up, peering at me through veiled, powdery crinkles. I was afraid her arm, impossibly frail, would collapse under my grip.

“Oh,” she said, “leetle Teemy. We go see Lloyd, no?”

We drove the mile or so in silence. Every other time I had listened to her, she was yelling at me. This, somehow, seemed more appropriate.

My buddy, Juice Staley, worked at Wolke’s, so he procured a wheelchair for my passenger, who seemed grateful. We briefly stood beside the closed casket, bedecked with Old Glory. We were greeted by a forlorn Mrs. Tichey, looking uncomfortable in a dress. No husband in sight. She was propped up by Myra, now a young woman. I could see Mrs. Tichey’s washcloth lingering on a nearby chair. Jimmy, no longer wild-eyed, comforted Barry. The scene was fraught with an uncomfortable confusion.

 No one seemed to recognize Mrs. Whalstrom, and I saw no fruit in explaining who she was. Some folks, obviously from the suburbs, entered to pay respects. This eased my tautness. Mrs. Wahlstrom gave me a look that said, “Enough,” and we made our way out.

We passed a Marine officer, all gussied up in his dress blues. He said, “Folks, you might want to stay. We are having a color guard, and an armed salute…”

Mrs. Wahlstrom, still in her wheelchair, was having none of this. “YOU GO TO HELL, MEESTER! ALL YOU KNOW IS FIGHT! FOR WHAT? TO KEEL YOUNG BOYS LIKE LLOYD!”

The man bristled and said, “You best get her out of here, you damned hippie,” he said. I answered with a mock, left-handed salute.

All Mrs. W. could manage on the drive home was, “I guess I told heem!”

At her house, she said, “You come in for tea, Teemy. You must.” How could I refuse this?I had never dared to venture through the door before this moment. I was a bit frightened as I did so. “You seet, Teemy,” she said, leading me into a living room. I rested, cradled in comfy cushions bedecked with lace antimacassars. I could smell the furniture polish and soak in the patina of age that seemed to settle on everything.

Then, I shot out of my seat, drawn to an opposite wall. It was covered with decorations, almost a shrine. There were dreamed newspaper clippings (“Tichey Scores 38 in Tourney Win”); pictures of Lloyd as an All-Stater. Handshakes, trophies: a celebration of Lloyd’s career. Looking further, I could see clips from my Who’s Who in American Colleges honors. Even that shot from an old Billboard when they handed out those Sesame Street gold records.

I stood there, in awe (was it joy? terror?) as she brought in the tea. She sensed my questions as we sat.“

I had no keeds, Teemy. You and Lloyd--good boys. Noisy but good. So I follow you, like you was my own boys.”

As the murky, late-afternoon sun slithered through the blinds, I could hear the thump of a ball and the shouts of youth. I fought tears mightily.

Somehow, it all made sense.

[scribeofmorpheus]

Mark of the Wolf Part 14

Catch Up Here!

Pairing: Derek Hale x Reader (Lastname: Markolf)

Words: 5k

Warnings: Some gory body horror bits -imo. Violence, another cold open, angst? Butchered Swedish.

A/N: It’s funny, looking back at my series plot outline, I never thought this was the direction I was going to go with this confrontation but... The pen writes what it wants.

Leave a like or reblog if you enjoyed this chapter! It helps ☺

~

Derek and Peter sat in the front of the car –Peter at the wheel driving at a more dangerous speed than Derek did. Markus sat beside you.

The others had taken other cars.

The car was cold. The air-con turned all the way up for some reason. It seemed you were the only one with goosebumps that refused to smooth over since you were the only one rubbing at your skin. In search of a warmer cardigan, you reached beside you to grab your duffle bag, but then you remembered you didn't have it. It was with Scott.

Damn!

You should have dressed warmer.

A dial tone sounded from Derek's phone. This was the third time he'd tried the same number. His brow was scrunched in annoyance as he tapped re-dial for the fourth time.

Your head was pressed to the cold glass of the window, the trees whooshing past to form one collective reel of green and brown as your nails dug into the bandage wrapped around your palm. An itch you couldn’t get at annoying your newly formed cut.

"She's not going to answer," Peter said, eyes focused on the road. "Besides, our plan isn't contingent on her being a key player."

"We need the back-up in case things go south," Derek said. "She's the only one powerful enough to take one of those hunters head-on if we need a quick exit."

"I cannot wait to say 'I told you so' when this inevitably blows up in your face," Peter snorted.

"If that happens we'll all be screwed to high hell," Derek said bleakly. “Which means, you’ll be going down with me, smart-ass.”

Peter rubbed his nose, a redness forming just above his lip. He exhaled loudly.

Once the ringing stopped, an unclear voice sounded out through Derek’s phone's speakers. He placed the phone to his ear.

"I need to cash in a favour," his tone was indifferent.

There was a beat of silence, thick and disturbing.

Peter shuffled awkwardly, stretching against the uncomfortable seat material and forward slanted head rest.

"She's not gonna show," Peter sing-songed.

You laced your fingers around your pendant, wringing it about from left to right like a pendulum. A spot on your chest marked by sage oil.

Derek hummed before cutting the phone, it sounded contemplative rather than disappointed. He turned to Peter, "I guess we're just going to have to hope everything goes as planned then."

 The car was parked on the edge of the treeline to the woods.

Peter groaned, looking down at his expensive shoes and the damp soil outside, "These were new shoes."

"I'll buy you a new pair if we live through this and you stop complaining," Derek clapped back as his heavy boots stomped into the mud, splatters of wet soil spraying on his dark jeans.

You and Markus disembarked and for once you were glad you weren't wearing your tennis trainers.

"On the plus side, if we all die, at least it’ll be in style," Markus noted dryly.

Peter shrugged and you rolled your eyes.

"Alright, split up?" Markus asked.

Derek nodded, "Yeah, since we know the lay of the land better, Peter and I will take one of you and we'll work going inward."

"If this place is so important, why hasn't anyone ever mapped out its location?" You asked, hands stuffed in your jeans to keep your body heat close as a cold breeze swept through.

"We tried. The Nematon has a tendency to hide itself," Derek told you.

"Oh..." you said, pretending to understand.

Peter looked around for a minute before speaking over his shoulder, "I'll take tall, dark and broody with me."

Both Markus and Derek pointed at themselves in confusion.

Peter rolled his eyes before pointing at your brother, "The other tall, dark and broody."

You lifted a finger to protest but before a full sound left your throat, Peter had already disappeared into the dark forest with Markus in tow.

You cursed under your breath and from the cheeky smirk Derek wore, you knew you hadn't sworn low enough.

"Come on," Derek's head nudged towards the dense forest. Hands in his back pockets.

"Perfect," you said sarcastically.

You and Derek walked in silence, your hands running up and down your bumpy flesh to burn the cold away.

The woods held an eeriness to them that made the air feel like burning sulphur despite the cold. Fog rolling outward like a dense smoke cloud the farther from the road you got.

You stepped in a mud patch and slid forward. Derek's quick hands caught you and kept you steady.

"You okay?" he looked you in the eye.

You blinked away and cleared your throat, "Yeah, t-thanks."

"You feel cold," he shrugged off his jacket. "Here."

"N-no, I- I'm fine, really," you refused his offer, but Derek ignored your words, draping his jacket around you. It was sweet of him.

"Relax. It won't eat you. It's just a jacket," he smirked.

You nodded while pressing your lips together.

"So… come here often?" you asked as Derek marched forward with long strides -you practically had to jog to keep up.

"To the woods?" he chuckled. "Yeah, this place is a riot," he added dryly.

You scrunched your face and Derek’s arms flexed as he folded them together.

"Actually I grew up close to these woods," there was a sadness to his voice.

You were intrigued, chin rising higher to get a better look at his face, "What's your family like?"

"Dead. Mostly," he noted casually.

Your eyes went wide.

Derek shuffled, feeling that maybe he sounded a bit more serious than normal. He ground his teeth before laughing humourlessly and tried again, this time lighter: "We used to be like your family, actually. Large, overwhelming, very unapologetically different."

"Thanks, I guess…?" you swatted at some fireflies.

Derek shifted his eyes blue and the bugs scattered from predatory fear. He relaxed back to normal and added, "It's a compliment, trust me."

You smiled before asking, "What happened?"

He answered almost immediately, like it as a rehearsed line or one he’d thought about many times, "The girl I was dating turned out to be a hunter… a homicidal one at that."

"Boy, those just follow you everywhere," you jabbed.

He craned a brow your way, "Goes with the territory."

He held your gaze for a moment too long and heat flushed through you, your lips tingling from the memory of his tender yet rough kiss. Your cast your eyes down at your feet.

When you looked back up you noticed Derek rubbed his nose discreetly.

You were compelled to ask him out of curiosity, "You and Peter have been doing that all night. Everything alright?" you pointed to his nose with a red nib.

"You can't smell it?" he was surprised, his eyes fixed on your pendant.

"Is it the sage?"

He hummed in response.

"Sorry," you said with a glib tone, feeling bad for causing everyone so much discomfort.

He cocked a half-smile, "Don't apologise. That is the only reason we're still alive-" he pointed at your pendant. "I can survive a little irritation. Immortal hunters? Not so much."

You stopped for a bit. Mind remembering something that made you laugh dryly. Derek turned to you.

"What?" he asked.

"N-nothing," you held his jacket as your body shook with laughter. "It's just ironic isn't it? The first time I met you, I dug a bullet out of your chest. You were the one in need of saving then. Now look at how everything turned out. I'm the proverbial damsel in distress and it pisses me off!"

It was Derek's turn to laugh, hot air permeating through the cold night in foggy breaths.

"You find that funny?" your jaw squared as you planted your feet and crossed your arms.

"I think it's funny you think you're a damsel," he smiled wider. "Not many damsels I know of have no qualms with cauterising a man's wound using the tip of an arrow and a zippo.  And you can damn well be certain they aren’t eagerly offering themselves up as bait. Not once mind you, but twice." He held up two fingers.

"Then I guess I'm an idiot," you remarked flatly.

"Aren't we all?"

Derek placed a hand on your shoulder. Your body reacted as you’d come to expect, with a shiver running up your spine and a flush rising up from your neck to greet your cheeks.

He uttered in a manner reserved for those more than friends -soft and intimate, "Take it from someone who lost their lycanthropy once, claws and teeth and speed doesn't make you powerful. Resolve does. And you've got that in spades."

You gulped, the warm feeling creeping into your chest again. It was strange seeing him so… open. This version of Derek was different from the one you first saw bleeding out on your metal slab.

Derek didn't move. His hand sending ripples of electricity through you from the contact. It didn't help matters that his jacket smelled of his scent and was wrapped around you like you were a couple in an 80's movie.

It all should have felt overbearing, too demanding, but for some reason, it felt the complete opposite. It felt like just enough.

You took a step forward and Derek stayed locked in place. He was determined to keep his promise. If anything were to happen between you two, under the stars and the pregnant silver moon, it would be only by your say so. You held all the cards and from the tantalisingly tempting way your lips tingled, you knew instinctively what your next play would be.

Your brain shouted for you to step away, to keep things from getting complicated, to not risk your heart again, but your lips parted of their own volition and soon you were speaking in a heady tone, "Derek… I…"

His jaw tensed, though it was much subtler. His eyes on the verge of turning blue. An odd aquamarine settled over his irises instead. He was trying his damndest to stay in control. It was then that you noticed how tightly he balled his other fist. The air filled with more trails of fog from his and your breaths. They kept climbing in frequency.

"I…" your feet trembled and then a howl pierced through the sound of crickets, startling you from your daze.

Derek inhaled and let his arm drop free from your shoulder, he brought it to his own and started working the muscle there as if it were sore.

"Peter's calling. Think he's found it. Come on," he shrugged as he walked in broad strokes towards the origin of the howl.

You cursed again and followed after, thankful for the cold air for the first time since the night began. It drained the colour away from your face.

"What took you guys?" Markus asked as he hopped off one foot onto the other in repeated motions.

"They were probably in-dis-posed," Peter wiggled his eyebrows as he strained the syllables of that last word, a devilish smirk pulling his face up.

Derek shook his head and you bit your inner cheek, ignoring the suggestive look Peter had shot your way.

A stone’s throw away was an old stump in the middle of the clearing. The Nematon.

"That's the Nematon?" you asked, a little disappointed.

"Not much to look at, but trust me, that thing is teeming with supernatural energy," Peter said.

Markus squatted close to the tree, placing his hand on its flat surface. His eyes flashed to red and back, nails shifting into claws then back to nails.

"They're right, this is it." He confirmed.

"This thing is barely higher than my knee. Without branches, what are we going to fashion stakes out of?" you raised your hand at the short stump.

Derek and Peter glanced at each other, each thinking the same thing.

In unison, they said: "The root cellar."

The root cellar was dark. The smell of earth was rich here. An old stain of a bloody handprint had turned a coppery orange colour on one of the root tendrils snaking into the ground. A five-fold-knot carved into another. The air was freezing, like the temperature decreased exponentially, forcing your teeth to chatter. A sickening feeling tugging at your gut as your organs protested in every way possible.

"Something bad happened here," you spoke in a hushed whisper.

Derek was stiff, eyes turning glassy as they stared daggers at the five-fold-knot. The atmosphere around him shifted. All of a sudden he was his usual brooding and detached self.

"That is an understatement," Peter replied.

Markus took in the air, coughing slightly. He and Peter scratched at their noses in almost perfect synchronicity. Not Derek though. He stayed painfully still.

"What happened here?" Markus rose his eyebrows.

Peter's mouth opened then closed, a furrow on his face.

"Let's just get what we came for and wait for the call," Derek grumbled out, claws extending instantly as he slashed at a sturdy section of root and pulled it free.

Peter ran a hand through his hair, "You heard the man."

***

You paced about the sparsely furnished loft space that belonged to Derek. There was yellow police tape discarded next to the entrance. A large window with no curtains provided most of the light in the open-plan apartment.

Derek tossed his phone on the counter, a sigh leaving his lips. "That was Scott. It worked. Now it's our turn."

"Do you think they'll make it out okay?" your voice was shaky, worry keeping you on edge.

"We can't worry about that now," Derek walked over and stretched out his hand expectantly.

You swallowed hard, a ball forming in your throat as you tried to unclasp your necklace with shaky fingers.

Derek squeezed your fingers, "Let me."

You spun around, focused on counting the number of bricks on the wall whilst he removed your necklace. His thumb brushed the back of your neck lightly and then he walked away to stash the necklace in a sealed ziplock bag, tossing it in a drawer for extra measure.

"And now?" you said after you had counted all the bricks on that stretch of wall.

"We hope Scott and Liam can take a few hits and stop any stragglers from coming our way while we..." Peter kicked his feet up and lounged on a leather couch, "Wait."

You stared down at the yellow tape, sorely aware of how tense the room was.

You did the one thing you hated doing in such instances, you made with small talk, "So… you still wanted for murder?"

Markus's head snapped up from his phone, nose no longer red. His attention was drawn towards Derek who was leaning against the kitchen island -his nose also no longer red.

"Alleged murder," he held up one hand to reassure your brother. "And, yeah, in four counties actually."

"Have you thought about what you're going to do if we survive this? I mean… you can't live on the run forever, can you?" you pressed your palms together tightly using your knees to keep from anxiously bouncing on your feet as you sat on the opposite couch to Peter’s.

"If we survive, that'll be just one of the many things I'll have to cross off my to-do list," he retorted.

Markus squinted before sitting up straight, hands clapping together once, "That's why you look so familiar. You were on the news some months ago. Manhunt in--"

"Shh!" Peter shot up quickly.

"I hear it too," Derek said hurriedly as he vaulted over the counter and pulled you behind him, stake in hand.

Right then, an arrow pierced through his large window and shattered the glass. The sharp point dug into the wooden floorboard a few inches to the left of where you'd been standing.

Here we go again.

"Okay boys," Peter cracked his neck before extending his fangs. "Once more with feeling!"

All three of them were all glowing eyes, long claws and wolfish snarls. You raced behind the kitchen island and ducked behind it for cover but no new arrows whistled through the air.

Just then, Astrid barrelled in in through the window, her nose raised high as she sniffed at the air, fangs extended. Her claws were longer than all the men's and her eyes glowed a deeper blue than Derek's or Peter's. Come to think of it, Markus was the only one in the room with red eyes.

Astrid clicked her tongue several times, one long-clawed finger swaying from the left to right, "I knew something was afoul when you weren't with the True Alpha and his rageful beta.” She turned to stare daggers at you, “Alyster will be pleased I found you and after I kill all three of your wolves, I'll deliver you to him." Her accent was heavy, Scandinavian. You realised this was the first time you'd heard her speak English.

“It is your time now,” Astrid pointed at you, a grin on her face.

Peter laughed.

Astrid’s eyes twitched, "What is so funny?" she demanded.

"The fact you thought it would be that easy," he replied like he knew the punchline to a joke she didn’t.

Astrid took a step closer, her claws slicing through the air. Peter leaned back with perfect timing.

"Now!" Derek growled.

Theo burst out of a hiding spot holding a jar of black ash and chucked a whole fist full of it at a broken circle on the floor. An impregnable ring forming around them while the other men in the room tried to hold the rabid Astrid down. You dashed back to the drawer Derek had stashed your necklace in and quickly clipped it back on.

"Mountain ash!" Astrid screamed in anger.

Like a volatile typhoon, Astrid took on all three men, her long claws slashing deep and wide. Blood soaked through torn clothes and your ears were deafened by the piercing howls and deep growls that vibrated off larynxes. Markus lifted his stake when he got an opening, but Derek held his hand at bay.

"No!" Derek stated bluntly.

Markus stared in confusion, not about to let one of the people that'd nearly killed his sister survive.

Peter took the brunt of Astrid's attacks while Derek and Markus were forced in a stand-off.

"Get out of my way!" Your brother shouted, twisting his arm free from Derek's hold

"We need her alive!" Derek shouted back, replacing his hold with his other hand. “For now.”

"Can we argue about this later?" Peter spoke through bloody teeth.

"Rahhh!" Astrid shouted as she lodged her claws into Peter's side, a scream ringing out.

You gasped, taking a step forward.

Derek got distracted by the sound for a fraction of a second, but it was all it took for Astrid to sink her claws into his back and lift him up over her head.

"Derek!" you screamed as you rushed forward, body impaired by the force field of blue light that flooded your vision when you collided with the mountain ash barrier.

Derek spat out a splotch of coppery scented blood as she threw him onto the ground, hard. The sound of his jaw breaking made the floorboards shake. Markus wasted no time and imbedded his stake in her spine. Astrid screeched, dark veins rising up to become visible around her neck and temple.

"Omöjligt..." she whispered as she collapsed onto the ground. Her eyes still open and her chest still moving. He hadn't killed her, but Markus had successfully immobilised her.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck. No!" Peter panicked over Derek's bloody and sliced form. His wounds healing, albeit not fast enough. "What the hell were you thinking?" he glared at Markus with bared fangs.

Markus answered matter-of-factly, "Protecting my pack."

You whimpered when you saw black oozing from Derek's wounds.

That wasn't good.

"If he dies…" Peter whispered low and sinister. Then he snapped up at you and Theo when Derek grunted weakly, "Break the seal damn it!"

Theo broke the circle with the dragging of his heel and a wave of blue energy rippled out. Faster than you’d ever seen him move before, Peter carried Derek to his couch.

Upon seeing the blood and smelling the copper, your veterinary skills kicking in. You ran to Derek's side and steeled your nerves before slicing the knife across his shirt and exposing his chest. Peter slumped down next to you, eyes serious.

"Help me tie her up," Theo asked for Markus's assistance as he hoisted Astrid onto a chair, binding her hands in rope.

The black veins had spread and her skin was beginning to wrinkle and prune. The tips of her fingers discolouring to a dark purple as one of her nails slipped off from the crown with no opposition.

"Eugh!" Theo grimaced in disgust as he held back a gag. "Uh, man! I th- think she's- she's starting to decompose. Rapidly."

Markus blocked his nose as a new stench wafted through the air.

You could smell it too. It was so strong it made your eyes nearly water.

"Whatever magic keeps her alive, the root from the Nematon must be sapping her dry. You were right," Markus assessed.

"Whatever you needed her alive for, you better do it quick," Theo urged as his cheeks filled with air from a repressed gag.

"Fools…" Astrid spat, a tooth slowly dislodging from her blackening gums. "We can't die!”

"Yeah, well you aren't looking very alive either," Theo coughed out from behind his palm, trying to keep from breathing in her ghastly scent.

Astrid carried on, “One always takes our place. We’re divine soldiers. A champion must always exist as long as the First Coming still lives."

“The First Coming? You mean the plague?” Markus pumped her for information.

Astrid huffed. She smelled like a gangrene infested wound, septic and infected, “The First Coming isn’t a sickness. She is a woman of unparalled power. Only her own magic can imprisson her. Only the blood of the tainted will keep her at bay. When there are none of the ex alia left she will bring about the end of the world. ”

You ignored Astrid’s discomforting words and felt all over across Derek's back, running over the imperfect triskelion. Padded fingers forced black ichor to cascade out from circular holes torn through flesh. Derek's eyelashes fluttered in pain and all you saw were the whites of his eyes. He was too quiet. Too slack. It was unbearable to see him like this, but you had to focus.

You wouldn't let what happened to Alex happen again.

Not to Derek.

"Peter, get me a sharper knife and some alcohol!" You ordered while examining the claw marks more closely. "Markus get me better light. Theo check to see if any of Astrid's claws broke off her fingers."

Displeased, Theo tried to look over Astrid's fingers as carefully as he could, his face sneered in disgust as he held back more gags. When he tried to lift a finger up gently the interphalangeal joint came right off, skin and flesh peeling away freely.

"Eugh! Gross! They keep sliding off like… like fucking butter, I can't- It's too-" He retched dropping Astrid’s severed finger bit like he just lost at a game of hot potato.

Markus scrambled to collect every lamp he could find and place it closer to you while Peter arrived with the whole cutlery tray ripped out of the drawer. Peter unscrewed the cap off the bottle of scotch and held it out for you.

You took a swig and then another and then poured some over Derek's scraped back. Derek shuddered, but no sound came out of his mouth.

Unresponsive to pain, he was going into shock.

You pulled out a butter knife, doused it in alcohol and started digging around Derek's first cut, barking at Theo with authority, "You're just gonna have to deal with it, Theo! Just keep checking!"

Peter picked up the bottle of scotch and took a few swigs himself.

Astrid started laughing, her voice growing hoarse with each chorus, one of her teeth fell out and Theo winced, dodging the discarded enamel.

"Wait, you're right!" Theo shouted when he looked over her other hand. "One of her claws is broken in half! Among other things…"

"That's why he isn't healing," you bit down, resigning yourself to breathe only through your nostrils as you concentrated hard on your task. "I just have to get it out in tim- Shit!" You wiped sweat away with a blood-stained hand.

"What? What is it?" Peter leaned closer.

"I think it punctured his heart..." you stammered, more tears welling in your eyes. You chased them away with a loud clearing of your throat.

Peter dropped the scotch bottle, the glass shattering and spilling amber liquid everywhere. Then, leaving you with no time to react, he lunged at your brother and the two struggled against one another.

"Stop, stop, stop, stop it! You two can fight it out if he… dies. But not while he's still breathing!" Your shout echoed in the loft.

They all stilled, even Astrid. You returned your attention back to Derek.

You had cleaned Derek's wounds as best you could, but Astrid's claw had pierced too deep into his heart. You were afraid you'd simply send Derek off to a far quicker death if you pulled it out. Maybe that would be a mercy, considering his state now.

Derek's body was burning way past the normal temperatures of any human fever. Almost like he was fighting off an infection. His skin was damp and his wounds not yet healed –that scared you. You compressed his larger cuts with the rags of his shirt, but there wasn't much else to do but wait.

Wait and watch him die.

You sniffled several times, trying to keep from progressing to full-on crying. Your heart heavy and your stomach twisting on itself.

"Theo, go to Scott, you can do more for him there. Take Markus with you. He isn't wanted here," Peter said without looking up from his nephew's dying form.

Markus took a step forward, "If you think I'm leaving my sister alone with yo--"

"Go with him," you said softly, not looking up from the blood-soaked rag. "I'll be fine."

Astrid was getting worse too. Her skin had turned leathery now, as though she was mummifying. Her eyes dulled in colour as cataracts formed over her filmy eyeballs. She couldn't see even though her eyes were wide open.

Peter picked himself off the floor and grabbed Derek's stake off the ground.

"What are you going to do with that?" you asked with no emotion. You knew exactly what he was going to do, you just didn't want to go forward with something unsaid.

"I'm going to save my nephew," he said through gritted teeth and he moved over to kneel next to Astrid. "Tell me how to save him!" he barked in her ear. From the way she didn’t react, you guessed her eardrums were the next to go in her decay cycle.

Her head craned too far back, popping sounds emanating from her sagging neck, "You're too late. Kill me. Don't kill me. It doesn't matter. It's up to him now,” one of her fingers pointed at Derek before falling clean off.

Peter growled before stabbing one of Astrid's bony legs under her now baggy armour.

She wheezed in pain.

Peter tilted his head to the side, twisting the stake in her tough, meatless leg, "Tell. Me. How!"

Astrid's jaw pulled wide as she tried to hold back a scream, a rip forming at the corner of her mouth.

"Peter stop!" You stood and pulled the stake out of her leg. "We aren't monsters."

His eyes flashed blue and he backed you away from him with a frightening snarl, canines chomping at the air close to your face, "That's where you're wrong. I am a monster!"

In lightning-quick movements, Peter pushed the stake into Astrid's heart and her whole body began to shrivel.

Between straggled breaths from burst air sacs, Astrid raised her head towards the light of the full moon, a melancholic smile crossing her dehydrated face. With what little life she had left, she whispered words not meant for anyone in this room, "I det här livet och nästa. Jag kommer se dig igen. Min kärlek..."

Then her head went limp, falling to her deflated chest as the ropes slipped off her body. Astrid was no more and in her place was a pathetic mummified corpse steadily turning to dust. Then she was nothing.

Suddenly, and violently, the weather changed. The wind grew tumultuous, a horrifically sharp scream carried with it. In the distant, lighting struck down in unnatural and frequent bursts of light. Somewhere in the dark clouds, a tornado began to swirl.

You and Peter ignored the chaos happening right outside the window. The two of you were locked in your own personal pandemoniums.

"Pull out the claw," Peter said darkly, having made up his mind.

"It's too close to his heart. If I-"

Peter's nose almost touched your own. His clawed fingers wrapping around your neck to pull you close, "His condition is only getting worse. Pull out the claw. If he's going to die, it's going to be quick. Put him out of his misery."

You shoved Peter away, but you knew, deep down, it would be the humane thing to do. And now you knew you had definitely gone insane if you were agreeing with Peter Hale.

“You just had to make me say I told you so,” he said bitterly, a tear streaming down his face. “Just like your mother.”

You knelt next to Derek, trembling fingers grazing his paling flesh. As you wrapped your hands around the tweezers gripping the claw, you whispered in his ear, "You said it took someone of tremendous resolve to go through what I've been through and have survived. I also believe it takes someone of great resolve to go through what you go through every day and still have the courage to wake up every morning. I admire that about you. I believe you still have some fight left, Derek… and I need you to survive this… because… because I have a question to ask you."

With a solemn teardrop, you pulled the claw out of his heart and crumbled to the floor, palms pressed together as you and Peter held your breaths.  

An otherworldly green glimmer shone from inside Derek's open wound.

Finale!>>

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[rainydawgradioblog]

Rainy Dawg Radio’s Best of the 2010s!

ALBUMS

Palberta - Bye Bye Berta

Palberta is a band that somehow manages to scratch almost every musical itch I have. Nowhere else have I heard a band successfully hold three part harmonies over squeaky atonal guitar riffs and abstract drum thrashing. Although I wouldn’t categorize them as twee, noise rock, post-punk, indie pop, no-wave, or any other genre name for that matter, they distill everything I love from all these types of music and mush it into something beautifully stinky. In my eyes, their 2017 album Bye Bye Berta stands as the definitive statement of what Palberta’s all about. With 20 tracks clocking in at under half an hour, the album wastes no time on filler. Skronky punk riffs burst apart at the seams and a sweet little lo-fi love song comes out of the wreckage, only to be replaced by an abstract tape sample collage. The band also has an incomparable mastery over lyricism, as evidenced by such classics as Finish My Bread (Finish my finish my finish my bread, finish my finish my finish my bread, etc…) and Trick Ya (HEY! Don’t trick me, I’m gonna trick you! HEY! Don’t trick me, I’m gonna trick you!). Highlights include the endearingly ramshackle and stupid pretty “Honey, Baby” and their cover of “Stayin’ Alive” (Jenny’s eating burgers and everybody’s shakin’ and stayin’ alive!)

- Elliott Hansen

Alex G - DSU

Shit if you know me you know I live for that sad bastard indie music. That’s exactly what DSU does best. Probably my most played record of the 2010s, this album’s lo-fi indie rock overfloweth. The opener, After Ur Gone, is on the noisier side of the album’s spectrum along with the squealing guitar of Axesteel and Icehead (peep the scream vocals in his live performances), while songs like the instrumental Skipper exemplify why Frank Ocean tapped Alex for the Self Control riff on Blonde. The emotional core of the record, Sorry, gets right back to the Elliott Smith comparisons that we know and love: lyrics of trauma, drugs and apologies included. My favorite song is Harvey; it smacks me right in the younger brother emo spot, with “run my hands through his short black hair I say / ‘I love you Harvey I don’t care’”. While not as chaotic as House of Sugar, twangy as Rocket, or psychedelic as Beach Music, this record is Alex G comfort music at its finest.

- Max Bryla

Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma

Picture this: J Dilla, Madlib, and Aphex Twin all come together to create an album with little more than some old Coltrane records and an original Xbox at their disposal. The end result is like a trip through the universe. Yet the album comes from the mind of a single individual, who sits in the cockpit with a mischievous grin on his face: Steven Ellison, known professionally as Flying Lotus. The opening track, ‘Clock Catcher’, feels like Ellison slamming his foot onto the ignition so hard that it snaps out of place, shooting into the heavens at the speed of light before the listener can even strap in. Whirling through the stars, the rest of the album is the journey home from the expanse, often melancholic, often wondrous, always changing. From the punchy, off-kilter rhythms of tracks like ‘Nose Art’ and ‘Computer Face//Pure Being’ to the fat synth melodies of ‘Dance of the Pseudo Nymph’, ‘Recoiled’, and ‘Do The Astral Plane’, Flylo is always striking the listener from a different sonic vantage point. You can tell he’s having the time of his life with each of these songs, wanting to share every bit of it with our eardrums. After countless listens, I’m still finding new things about this album to appreciate. A complete masterpiece of cosmic epiphany fuel.

- Trey Marez

Ott. - Fairchildren

People throw so much music at me. And I remember this album was recommended to me back in high school, and I listened to it for the first time in zero-th period -- I think it was someone who went by the name “phryk” on IRC. And dang, it’s still such a good album! In what sense? It’s so well-mixed; that’s the first part. Secondly, it is just a wonderful listening experience from start to finish. If you need a good album of reggae, dub, electronic, here it is. One thing you shouldn’t do with this album: use it to test out speakers at Goodwill. The bass of this album was so good that I bought home a pair of speakers that turned out to be so bad.

- Koi Nil

Car Seat Headrest - Twin Fantasy

Bandcamp has been known for hosting some of our wildest dreams this decade, and when 2011 lobbed William Toledo’s first rendition of Twin Fantasy down my ears my life changed. Emotions are crushed to death in the back of parking lots, the lo-est of fi’s, and lyrics that trigger far and melancholy memories of the early 2010 zeitgeist swarmed with insecurity and Skype calls. The album is Toledo’s first cohesive piece, finally creating work with developed central themes, dedicating the first concept album of his life to falling in and consequently out of love. The album speaks as a mirror to itself, reflecting Will’s own joy and confusion towards falling conservatively and completely in love, until the sobering downward spiral back into isolation. I was only eleven when I let the album own me completely, and am only nineteen as I hold onto it for dear life. Twin Fantasy was never a perfect album, and Toledo recognized this as he re-released Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) in 2018, reinventing the album’s sound with a much higher fidelity, lyrical updates, and redone instrumentals that turn the original into an overture or prologue to be enjoyed separately for more context. Searing solos, cute doo-wop moments, sentimental lyrics, slap-happy drums, fish wearing business suits, dogs, coming out over Skype, smoking, not smoking, nice shoulders, waitresses, the Bible, the ghost of Mary Shelley’s frankenstein, cursive, they might be giant’s rip offs, not knowing SHIT about girls, stealing alcohol from our grandparents and grandparents, bruised shins, cults, fish, getting the spins, and being really really really sensitive to the sunlight. I’d fight for this album, listening to “Cute Thing” as I get RKO’d. Take the time to enjoy the ride, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. (It technically used to be a gay furry album, but now it’s techincally a straight trans furry album.)

- Cooper Houston

Sabaton - The Last Stand

Sabaton is every history teachers dream band. These Swedish power metallers educate the listener about the history of war by discussing various battles, conflicts, and figures. They do this through anthemic choruses, riffs that make your fist pump, and oddly enough synths that work surprisingly well. Since history interests me and I really like metal, Sabaton was pretty much made for me. This album will always have a soft spot in my heart and evoke fond memories as it was one of the first CDs I picked up after getting my license back in 2016. As I gained more independence and freedom as I approached adulthood, this was my soundtrack. This album lived in my CD player during this time as I listened to it over and over again, never once losing its replayability. Ranging from the American battalion that got lost in the Argonne Forest during WWI to Allied and Axis forces joining together to fight at the end of WWII, this album tells of various historical last stands. While this is certainly isn’t the best metal release of the decade, it’s still an extremely solid album. In this case, the sentimentality plays a larger role than anything. While it may not be found on any “Best Album of the Decade” lists, Sabaton’s The Last Stand will always hold a place in my heart and in my car’s CD player.

- Jack Irwin

CONCERTS

07/20/19: What the Heck? Fest @ Croatian Club, Anacortes, WA

Choosing a single favorite concert from the entire past decade seemed insurmountable until I decided to define it by the overall experience rather than exclusively the music. This past summer, I was lucky enough to be one out of barely over a hundred people at the first What the Heck? Fest in 8 years. The festival took place annually from 2001 to 2011, featuring PNW indie legends, K records icons, and all manner of dorky indie folk kids. WTH laid dormant until this past spring, when Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie) announced its return along with the revival of his long-dead initial moniker, the Microphones. I made the trip up from Seattle alone by train and bus, spent a little while wandering Anacortes (the Business was closed :( ) and made my way to the repurposed church which houses the Unknown and the Croatian Club. I ended up seated a few feet from Calvin Johnson in one direction and Kimya Dawson in another. I felt a little out of place at times, like a stranger in the middle of a 90s indie family reunion, but the atmosphere remained consistently welcoming. D+ opened the show, fronted by Bret Lunsford (formerly of Beat Happening), the founder and main organizer of WTH, and backed by Phil Elverum and Karl Blau, who played their own sets later in the night. K Records mainstays Lois and Mecca Normal were on next, delivering stripped down, socially-driven whisper punk/indie pop. Karl Blau led an outdoor sing-along and covered a Pounding Serfs song, who played the next set (their first in [a lot of?] years) for a total of two renditions of “Slightly Salted,” a song I could have listened to in every set that night. Phil hopped back onstage again alongside Lee Baggett to back Kyle Field from Little Wings, an indie-folk favorite of mine, with rambly half-nonsensical lyrics and plenty of soft strummed warm twangly guitars. Black Belt Eagle Scout delivered (comparatively) heavier sounds, coupling slow, soft sung melodies with fuzzed out shoegaze tones, building tension until the Microphones (Phil backed by Kyle, Karl, Lee and keyboardist Nicholas Krgovich) came out for the final set of the night. They opened with what I interpret as a 25-minute rendition of the then-unreleased Belief, which was later shortened to 7 and a half minutes as the opener to the new Mount Eerie record, Lost Wisdom pt. 2. Phil then played a handful of old Microphones tracks alone, including a version of The Glow pt. 2’s title track with reworked lyrics, as well as its closer, My Warm Blood, excerpts from the final Microphones album (confusingly titled Mount Eerie), and what I believe to be another unreleased song. I left with the most limited merch I’ve ever managed to snag: one of two Ziploc bags of lettuce with “the Microphones” and a small K records logo sharpied on the front. I felt bad eating my merch, but it sustained me through the cold Anacortes night as I wandered to and from poorly lit parks, killing time until my 4AM bus back to Seattle.

- Elliott Hansen

03/09/19: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Solo) @ Vermillion Gallery, Seattle WA

Was really not sure what to expect from this one going in, but CYHSY’s s/t from 2005 has always been one of my favorite records. I hadn’t ever been to Vermillion in Capitol Hill, but it was hosting CYHSY on a “living room tour”, where Alec Ournsworth (vox, guitar, harmonica[!]) hit tiny spaces around the country. Vermillion sat 40 at most, and I got to check out some cool local art in the space as well. Alec’s trademark voice that (according to p4k) sounds “as if someone were pressing his vocal cords to a fret board and bending them” which is pretty damn accurate. Amongst CYHSY’s greatest hits (In This Home On Ice and Cool Goddess in particular), he also covered Pixies and Tom Waits through lively and exciting banter. Great dude, great music, great venue. My favorite of the 2010’s for sure.

- Max Bryla

11/14/18: Milo @ Vera Project, Seattle, WA

Milo, and the ruby yacht house band are poetic alchemists that constantly dish out hefty servings of succulent syllables with each new release. Kenny Segal who does the beats for a few of Milo’s songs (and other hip hop artists) opened by transporting the crowd into the ethereal realm with a few classics from his album: happy little trees. Once Kenny Segal finished, Milo accompanied by the ruby yacht house band jumped on stage. I was close enough that I could make out Milo’s squirtle tattoo on his bicep and waited for his vivid and veracious vocabulary to leave me in a state of decapitation. Crispy, potato chip like static (a Milo-live signature) was consumed ferociously by the crowd as he hit us with one banger after another. About halfway through the set Milo dropped the mic and went off stage into the back room. The ruby yacht house band was left Milo-less; their beat lingering in the air, festering with each hit of the snare. Milo returned a while later, wielding a pair of tap dancing shoes in one hand and a ukulele in the other. He put on the tap dancing shoes on stage, everyone in the audience screaming with his return. Donned with the tap dancing shoes and positioning his ukulele on his chest; he began to dance. Holy shit he was good too. Strumming the uke and tap dancing away I was utterly mesmerized. My eyes glued to his performance. Suddenly, as if stricken by some divine intervention, Milo seized the ukulele by the neck and smashed it against the ground, splintering into a thousand pieces. After his destructive fit, he picked the microphone back up and whispered into it emotionlessly: “Think about that”. I did. The whole experience was transcendental and instantly triumphed as my greatest concert of the decade. You KNOW I snagged a sliver of uke on my way out.

- Rocky Schaefer

08/07/17: Metallica @ CenturyLink Field, Seattle, WA

While Metallica has had its ups and downs throughout their career, they do one thing well, and that is putting on a damn good live show. Metallica built the best line-up I have ever seen, given the popularity of the bands they chose. With them they took Avenged Sevenfold, who I greatly dislike but are still a huge band, and Gojira, one of the best modern death metal bands on the scene. The sheer size of this concert was absolutely and extremely inspiring as Metallica was able to fill up CenturyLink Field, a venue usually reserved for pop artists who draw in thousands of attendees. The amount of people that attended signaled to me that metal is far from dead. While this tour was in support of their newest album Hardwired to Self Destruct, Metallica made sure to incorporate classics into their setlist including “Seek and Destroy,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” and “Battery.” James, Robert, Kirk, and Lars delivered a killer concert will tight playing and outstanding individual performances. Being able to see my music hero, James Hetfield, play live was truly a special experience. The one thing that stood out during the performance were the visuals. Each song had a unique and individual video effect on the large screens behind the band which made each song special and memorable it its own way. While I wasn’t close to the stage by any means, the crowd interaction created a unique experience that made me feel much closer than I really was. This concert wasn’t just a concert, but also a life-changing experience. Seeing the band that truly got me into metal, the thing that I rest my individuality on, is something that defined the decade for me and will live with me forever.

- Jack Irwin

SONGS

“You Are Here” - Yo La Tengo

This one I don't think I can fully explain. By miles, this is my most played song of all time. It is the opener of Yo La Tengo’s 15th album, There’s A Riot Going On. The album, and song, starts with the meditative synth line that builds into a pulsing rhythm over the course of the first minute. The rhythm maintains through the rest of the song, as casual guitar strumming is added and another synth that doesn’t sound all that dissimilar to Jonny Greenwood’s Ondes Martenot. My favorite part of the song, though, are the drum fills of the latter half: they crash and roll like the ocean. With or without the title of the song, the audio conveys a degree of presentness and contentedness that I haven’t been able to find elsewhere quite yet. I’d recommend it.

[tumblingdoe]

Day 2, 3, & 4 of Road Head

Thursday January 3, 2019

Nels is really good about getting up in the morning, hand-grinding and brewing coffee, then driving to our next destination. I’m more of a night owl so I’m good at sleeping through all of this -- except today. The wind rattled the RV so strongly that it reminded me of the shuttle launches I learned about at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. I thought about how this adventure is like a launch into the unknown, an uncomfortable, fast-paced exploration, calculated by a huge team, and executed by few. Was I still willing to stay onboard?

I thought about the keychain I had gotten at the Rocket Center for this very trip, an astronaut and how supporters of Sexplanations are called Sexpla(i)nauts. The whole morning felt really sentimental. Especially when we arrived at our first destination: Pasco, Washington’s Country Mercantile which is like an indoor farmers market run by a grocer. I LOVE THIS PLACE!

A sexpla(i)naut named Dylan coordinated via Twitter to join us. I was thrilled. We ate breakfast and talked about sexuality. One of the special things I took away from our conversation is that fans of the show have a sort of built in sex ed software created from Sexplanations. So, when they have a question, there’s already a sense of the answer because I’ve programmed them. It’s not evil, it’s awesome!

Nels asked Dylan if he had questions for me and Dylan did, but he also said he knew to a degree how I would answer them and showed throughout breakfast that he was able to critically problem solve things I hadn’t talked about on Sexplanations from things I had talked about. I was a proud Lindsey at this moment.

I bought some cherry apple cider, huge apples, some onions, artichoke salsa, and tamales for a sex geek potluck Friday night. We got back on the road and drove again through the wind. The internet was fickle and this slowed my ability to help put out the week’s regular Sexplanations’ video. It went up smoothly anyway and Nels encouraged me to join him on a roadside hike to the top of Multnomah Falls. I thought to myself, “if you want exercise, let’s have sex!” but I knew it wasn’t just physical activity I needed. I needed fresh air and nature. To the hike.

By the time I was ready to be done walking up the trail there was a sign declaring we had done 1 out of 11 switchbacks!? I looked at the sign in disgust and proceeded to go forward. Just like with the Sexplanations Road Tour my belief was that a past me knew what would be best for a future me and even though present me would struggle, it would be worth it. I thought of a lot of metaphors on the hike and topics for Sexplanations’ episodes. I pondered how jumping into the 620 foot falls would be the fastest way down but then I’d be dead.

I did want Swedish meatballs, lingonberry juice, and retail therapy at Ikea before dinner at 5:30 and a speaking engagement at 7, so I ran down the mountain and got in the driver’s seat.

We did Ikea in 45 minutes -- got a cutting board, some floor mats, and cookware. Then it was off to Portland for real this time. Ethiopian food and my dear friend Ben from middle school were waiting for us. One of my greatest pleasures is eating with my hands.

After dinner, and just down the street was a meetup at the Sex Positive Education Events Center (SPEEC). As one attendee put it, “this might ruin it for the rest of your trip” because everything was so perfect. Angie, a sex therapist at SPEEC who’d coordinated everything with a day’s notice, had a projector for me to show Sexplanations, chocolates, comfy chairs, and a vibrator giveaway. The 20ish people who showed up were all spectacular!! We talked about sex positivity in the workplace, bisexual erasure, local resources, Nerdfighteria, the tour, and my experiences as a foster parent. I left with a gift of hand-made underwear and the overwhelming joy that Portland is in very good hands.

Afterward was second dinner with another dear friend and her partner. We went to the Chapel Pub where an organist was playing Sex Ed Rhapsody, “sex ed really matters. Anyone can see. Sex ed really matters. It really really matters to me.”  

Friday January 4, 2019

Thursday we stayed up late drinking tea with Ben and talking about the future before camping in his driveway like hardcore vanlifers. With all that tea imbibed, the RV plumbing was activated that night. (Since we were coming from frozen Montana we had winterized the plumbing so nothing would break but now that we’re in warmer temperatures and in need of a toilet regularly we have a semi-operational bathroom!)

Friday morning I ate RV breakfast -- Brown Cow cream top plain yogurt with Bernice’s Bakery granola from Missoula. It occured to me that I would run out of these items and there was a slight head tilt of mystery about five months of life without Missoula. We drove to visit Nels’ friend Jamie who had the day off from work and the two of them went on a hike in the forest while I took a much-needed shower and got some work done. I wasn’t able to fit 80 hours of assignments into three hours but I was grateful that I got to check some things off the list and have time alone.

When Nels and Jamie came back to the house we went out for Panang Curry. Ben met us and we talked about Blue Planet playing on the restaurant TV. I didn’t know that octopuses/octopodes could be magenta!

After food we all went separate directions. Jamie and Nels went to meet up with another friend and put a puzzle together. I took Ben to his house and then did a run to Fred Meyers for a mattress pad and some drawers to organize my art supplies. Lindsey driving around the city in an RV by herself is a badass!

The evening of Friday January 4, 2019

Nels and I drove to Gresham, Oregon about 40 minutes from where we were in Portland. The Sex Geek community was gathering for a short-notice potluck so I could spend time with kindred spirits. The house was beautiful and warm. Each person was so cool and the food was wonderful! It was like reconnecting with best friends even though these were people I knew loosely. We took a tour of the house, sat down picnic table style for dinner, then talked for hours. I learned that a handful of the sex geeks there had already been on tour, one of whom had taken on our very mission of providing sex ed around the country via RV. I learned about the Fisting Coven (of women who learn and practice fisting with supervision) and I discussed the infrequency of sexologists with children while smiling at a new baby nearby. I’m curious. Some of the guests did a nude photo shoot featuring an gorgeous apple flower dessert and others compared notes on how they were raised. Everyone had a pretty unique upbringing except two of us who had grown up the same age in the same 6,000 person town in northeast Ohio, competing backstroke on swim teams, and walking past the Hudson green clocktower for milkshakes. Two 37 year old women who became well-known sex educators.

I eventually brought up my fear of speaking at Oxford’s TEDx in February with one of the sex geeks who is a successful and talented public speaker.  He listened lovingly to my nerves and and boosted my confidence then retrieved a stack of colored notecards for me to write down and practice my speech over the next month. I knew what I was experiencing was a birth. Between my friends, the SPEEC meetup, and nurturing dinner party of colleagues I was being born into trust that this would all be transformative and meaningful.

Saturday January 5, 2019

Same morning routine, Nels made coffee and started the ignition. We had a brunch date with friends of his from college at their house. “At their house” is a great preposition when you’re road-tripping I’ve already learned because there’s a grounding feeling of front door, living room, bathroom, family dog etc. that you can’t get eating out at restaurants. AND the food is outstanding, made with love. This food was incredible, the black lab was so affectionate, and their toddler provided the ever so welcome shared activity of observing a tiny human being instead of outputting a lot of energy in small talk. I like Nels friends a lot!

After we left their place I felt an urgent need to take a nap and have sex, in that order. Nels and I are usually sex-multiple-times-a-day people but we haven’t prioritized it on the road. We got Costco gas, parked in the nearby lot, slept, then had much needed orgasms. I woke up hours later to Nels driving toward Eugene, Oregon where more of his friends had chicken masala for us “at their house.” I stayed in a relaxed state and committed to working later while they all socialized. As I write now they’re playing one of my favorite card games -- Bonanza, and I’m thrilled to be on a nearby couch, wrapped in a blanket, recalling day four. What a wondrous adventure I’m on.

[creativity-is-rebellion]

Top 10 Creepy/Scary Songs

I know it isn’t Halloween, but really, we can do this kind of thing any time of year, because I like discussing scary things. The following list is an eclectic mix of songs from varying genres that have creeped me out to varying degrees over the years. Enjoy!

'Acid Rain' Lorn (2015)

The the music video clip features zombie cheerleaders dancing their final dance for their onlooker (presumably Death himself) around an abandoned diner before they pass on into the afterlife. You-Tubers and Reddit users alike believe that the video depicts “Native American traditions that believe when Death comes you have the chance to dance your last dance, and Death has no choice but to watch. The wooden Native American looking into the distance in the diner for the video is a tell tale sign of this artistic vision.” Symbolism aside, it is hauntingly mesmerising.

In addition, and aside from the music video, the lyrics "daylight in bad dreams" makes me think that the subject of the song has bad dreams about living their everyday life, and that he doesn’t want to wake up, because his day-to-day drudgery is one long nightmare. This unsettles me, because it reminds me of the quote by Hannah Arendt, who discussed the banality of evil, within the context of Nazi Germany. Horror doesn’t have to be fantastical when reality is horrific enough. Which brings me to my second song....

'This is America' Childish Gambino (2018)

The music video for this song went viral at the beginning of 2018 for its shock value and controversial symbolic imagery. Several YouTube videos have been dedicated to deciphering the meaning behind both the video and the lyrics. The video and the lyrics are primarily dealing with the plights of African-Americans, and also seem to depict the careless handling of gun violence in America, in the wake of seemingly endless massacres and shootings. The laws don’t change, despite the damage that these events do. All of these issues create a horrific landscape for modern-day America, which can be far more terrifying than any supernatural phenomena.

'If I Had a Heart' Fever Ray (2009)

Also the theme song for the TV series 'Vikings,' the music video for this song by Swedish-Norwegian folk group Fever Ray depicts children fleeing with creepy-looking shamans from what appears to be a massacre in a palatial mansion, where bodies are strewn across the living room and even across the empty pool in the back garden, all while a demonic voice utters “more, give me more, give me more.” It appears that it may be Death itself panning his eyes across this visual landscape, watching it all unfold, and always wanting “more” death. It also fits the TV series it is a theme song for, as it could also be seen as an ode to human greed, as seen in the lyrics, “this will never end because I want more.” The whole song makes for eerie, ethereal listening.

'Theme Song' American Horror Story (2011)

Speaking of theme songs for TV series, the opening theme for this FX anthology series is one of the most disturbing I have witnessed, and of course, the one that had the most impact was the intro for the the first season, Murder House. Baby heads in jars, along with other body parts, a gruesome cellar, and a lot of creepy child pictures flash on the screen sporadically as the theme song plays at the beginning of each episode. The discordant, spooky sounds set up an uneasy vibe for each episode, making audiences constantly on edge 

'The Carnival' Amanda Jenssen (2012)

Also featured as a song in AHS Freak Show, this song has a foreboding, long intro before Ms. Jenssen’s moody voice kicks in, and, thanks to Freak Show, I will always associate this song with Twisty the Clown, and those scary teeth he has. The lyrics fit well with Jenssen’s album that they were featured on, entitled, “Hymns for the Haunted.” Give it a listen.

'Hurdy Gurdy Man' Donovan (1968)

If you've ever seen the 2007 movie 'Zodiac,' you'll know what I mean. But even before this movie came out, I remember travelling in the car with my parents and listening to this song playing on the radio, or on one of their cassette tapes on a long road trip, and even if it is not supposed to be a creepy song, it always sent shivers up my spine when Donovan sang the lyrics, “Down through all eternity, the crying of humanity.” It just felt so final and nihilistic, and that the Hurdy Gurdy Man was not the answer, but rather the cause, of all this endless sorrow. Call me weird, but this song definitely fits that shooting scene in Zodiac, if only because of how it mirrors the helplessness one would most definitely feel if being shot at unarmed, or if trying to calm the eternal cries of humanity.

'House of the Rising Sun' Lauren O'Connell (2012)

There are many versions of this song, the version by The Animals in being the most well-known and popular, but it’s Lauren O’Connell’s version (also featured in AHS Coven) that is the creepiest rendition of all. It’s slow, moody and builds tension in a way that makes you feel that the “House in New Orleans” is definitely a godforsaken place that no-one would want to end up in, and that all who go there face certain doom. Let’s just say the AHS franchise does creepy songs well.

'Turn Around, Look at Me' The Vogues (1966)

Made creepy by Final Destination 3, and probably one of the best things about this dismal instalment to the Final Destination series. Every time this song comes on the radio or over a loud-speaker, we know that the protagonist and her pals are in for a rough time, and the final time it plays on the train, when a guitarist disembarks, you feel as if Death itself is singing the song, and it is a memorable omen for the devastating events that follow. What can I say, I just really appreciate a well-placed song in a movie that creates the right atmosphere (or more appropriately, “atmosfear”). This song in this movie does exactly that.

'Missing' Everything But the Girl (1996)

Seriously, just listen to the lyrics behind this dance-y track. The singer asks pretty early on if the subject of her song “could be dead.” Other depressing lyrics are hidden in this seemingly upbeat Eurodance track. I like that lyrics such as this can exist in what appears to be a cheerful song. It gives it layers, and I appreciate layers as much as I appreciate symbolism.

'Every Breath You Take' The Police (1983)

The ultimate stalker song. I read that Sting was inspired by some sort of Cold War version of a Big Brother situation, and I never got why there were people that thought this was such a romantic song they played it at their wedding. It’s musically pleasing, but the lyrics give off a suffocating vibe, and I cannot help but think the stalker in the song got the upper hand in the end, probably in some sort of Nick Cave “Where the Wild Roses Grow” scenario. Brrrr.

And that concludes my list for now. There might be a part two somewhere down the track. Adios, and pleasant nightmares.

[awed-frog]

I only just learned that Christine Nöstlinger died last week. It’s the kind of news that leaves you both sad and slightly incredulous, because even as an adult, it’s hard to see someone like Nöstlinger as a real person. To me, she’ll always be a funny, exotic name on the cover of a book - she was one of my favourite writers when I was a young child, and I don’t think it ever occurred to me that those people - people like Roald Dahl, Astrid Lindgren, Bianca Pitzorno or Michael Ende - actually existed in the real world, and did things as mundane as wear pajamas or brush their teeth. In fact, as I was scrolling through a couple of obituaries today, I was surprised to learn Nöstlinger was Austrian, not Swedish (her books were side by side with Lindgren’s on my shelf) and that if her stories were always delightfully subversive, it’s probably because she grew up in Nazi Austria and experienced that reality first-hand. And while I do understand this is a thing that happens - that people have lives, that they must be born somewhere and do stuff and exist in actual reality - as I read of her death I became a child of eight again; what I found myself mourning was that name on my bookshelf - nothing more. I am slightly ashamed of that, of knowing nothing about this person who brought me so much joy, because over the last few years, I’ve gotten to know some YA writers and I now have a new appreciation of how hard they work and how determined they are to make a difference - not only to make children happy, that is, but also to teach them how to think for themselves, to help them engage with the world around them with full awareness. And so, to honour Christine Nöstlinger and her work, I decided to translate a speech she gave to the Austrian Parliament for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen. I couldn’t find an English version of it, and I think it deserves to be more widely read - especially today.

“I was almost two when the Mauthausen concentration camp was opened, and as the last survivors were freed by American troops, I turned eight. For this reason, you could think this is not a subject I remember hearing about or discussing. 

But I do.

I didn’t know the word Mauthausen, but I was certainly familiar with the expression ‘concentration camp’. I would hear it again and again as my grandma grumbled about the Nazis with the dairywoman or at the grocer’s. That’s when someone would whisper in warning: ‘You’ll get in trouble!’, they’d say; or: ‘You keep talking like that, you’ll end up in a concentration camp!’.

One memory is particularly clear and vivid in my mind: my uncle, my mom’s kid brother, is visiting us. He stands in his SS uniform, tall and broad, very close to my mother, and says: ‘Ella, the Jews are all going to pass through the chimney!’. And my mother, who was much shorter than he was, went red with rage and slapped him across the face. I think that was the first and only time my normally placid mother ever hit someone.

Obviously, I didn’t understand what ‘pass through the chimney’ meant, but I could guess it was something really bad. And that was the day I understood that Mr Fischl had passed through the chimney. 

Mr Fischl was a shoemaker, and he’d had a shop in our alley. He’d resole shoes, repair heels and fix the toe caps so that those who couldn’t afford it wouldn’t have to buy new shoes for their growing children. In 1938, shortly after the Anschluss, my mother witnessed a chilling scene as she was coming home from work: a group of SA soldiers had dragged Mr Fischl out of his shop and they were now forcing him to scrub clean the three white arrows some regime opponents had painted on the wall. A truck was parked in the street, full of grinning SA men. Mr Fischl, on his knees, was surrounded by his amused neighbours. My mother, with a heavy heart, moved to the other side of the street and walked on; she later heard Mr Fischl had been taken away that very day. Soon after those events, an ‘Aryan’ shoemaker took over both Mr Fischl’s shop and his apartment. Nobody ever mentioned Mr Fischl again - nobody, that is, except my mother. Again and again, she’d tell my sister and me what had happened to him. She always felt guilty she hadn’t done anything to stop it, and would always justify that choice to herself by saying: ‘If I hadn’t had children waiting for me at home, I would have gone there and sent those thugs packing!’. 

I was a child then, and when you’re a child you need to see your mother as someone who’s big and strong and powerful - especially if your father has been away in Russia for a long time. I hadn’t known then that adults sometimes lie to themselves. For this reason, I was thoroughly convinced that my mother would indeed have saved Mr Fischl if I had never been born. ‘Where did they take Mr Fischl?’ I asked once, and when my mother answered bluntly ‘To a concentration camp.’, I came to believe his death had been my fault.

This irrational sense of guilt started to fade away when I finally noticed that my mother was neither strong nor powerful: she was small and helpless, and definitely not capable of sending anyone packing.

But not being guilty is not the same as not being responsible. Many people have fully accepted this, and have done their best to bear witness for future generations - they’ve tried to explain where racism once led us; they’ve stood up and spoke out whenever the mood was souring against a minority group. 

Now, that’s not an easy thing to do, and many others were simply too uncomfortable to even try. Instead, those people interfered with this effort to remember, pretended they hadn’t known what was going on, complained about what they themselves had lost in the war, and basked in the self-serving idea of a ‘new beginning’. In order to expedite this ‘new beginning’, our post-war governments were not particularly keen to prosecute those who’d been implicated in Nazi crimes. To be perfectly blunt, those people were simply too many to be locked away. Without them, there would have been no possibility to establish a functioning state. Where on Earth would we have found a sufficient number of teachers and civil servants with a perfectly clean slate soon after the end of the war?

Meanwhile, the efforts to welcome back home those Jews and political opponents who’d managed to flee abroad were lukewarm at best. And there was no question of even discussing how to better integrate the Roma and Sinti communities - or, those among them who’d survived. For all of those reasons, my generation and my children’s generation have grown up in a country in which racism, far from being a bad memory, was instead an ongoing, deep-seated conviction passed down from father to son and from mother to daughter.

And today, not much has changed for the better. The only difference is that racism now presents itself under a different guise. Nobody dares to use (and few to even think) words like ‘master race’, ‘subhuman’, ‘Rassenschande’ and ‘final solution’. There is a strong taboo around them.

No, our current form of racism simply rejects all that is foreign. It sees native people as being threatened by an unsustainable wave of immigration; it insists that foreigners have it easy, and what it means by that is: ‘Those people want to live off us, they want to take something away from us!’.

Those who think these things, those who say them openly when they know others will agree, well - they won’t write racist slogans on the walls, won’t vandalize Jewish tombs, won’t insult a veiled woman, won’t beat up black people or set fire to refugee centres. On the other hand, what they do is giving confidence and justification to the people who actually do all these things; the certainty that they’re acting in everybody’s best interest. They are the fertile ground upon which violence grows. 

And the number of minorities against whom people ‘have something’ (in the best case) or ‘do something’ (in the worst) is already increasing. To the traditional victims of disapproval and aggression, today we can add asylum seekers and economic refugees (no matter where they come from); also people with a migration background (no matter whether they’re Austrian citizens or not). And obviously, people whose skin is a different colour. Today, however, unlike what happened in the Nazi era, total assimilation seems to protect from hostility. And I fear that when we’re talking about ‘more integration’, well - to the large majority of the population, what that really means is ‘assimilation’. We do not want to experience and get used to what is foreign and unknown; we want those who only just arrived to adapt to our traditional way of life, and that will rarely succeed. That’s why we are uneasy with living with people from unfamiliar cultures. For a long time now, our politicians’ solution to this problem has been to wait and hope that the issue will fade as those who’re already here slowly become more tolerant and those who have recently moved here slowly learn how to fit in. Often, these expectations have been met; but just as often they have not.

What we need to do is implement concrete measures: for instance, compulsory kindergarten attendance and all-day schools. We need properly trained teachers so that children who speak a different language at home can learn German quickly and efficiently. That way, as they start school, both their language skills and their chances to have a good education will be the same as those of the native speakers. This is the only way to prevent the emergence of parallel societies in vulnerable neighbourhoods. Better schools are also the only viable tool to weaken the deeply ingrained racism of most of our local population. Let’s remember that those who know nothing will believe everything, even the most outrageous nonsense and the most shameless distortion of facts. 

That said, we still need to understand why so many people prefer to believe racists over those who say that it’s perfectly possible to coexist peacefully (if not to truly share our lives with others). Maybe there is a reason; maybe our skin doesn’t have seven layers, as we all have learned, but eight. Maybe this eighth layer is a ‘civilisation skin’. We are not born with it. It appears and changes as we grow up. Whether it’s thick or thin, well, that depends on how well we look after it. If we don’t care for it properly, it stays thin and tears easily. And what seeps from those wounds may lead to consequences that will again cause us to say: ‘No one ever wanted that’.”

Christine Nöstlinger, 2015

[fluentlanguage]

#clearthelist July 2018: French, Welsh, And Why I Am Not Learning Chinese Yet

Welcome to my latest language learning update through #clearthelist. Clear the List is a support and accountability blog group sharing monthly language learning goals.

The Fluent Show

Fantastic month for the Fluent Show as we reached 270,000 downloads in under a year. YAY!! Thank you so much.

I loved the conversation Lindsay and I had in the episode “What is Fluency, What Is Mastery…And How Do You Get There?”, my top pick for the month. Every ambitious learner should hear discussion, so do check it out.

What Happened in June

June was always going to be a busy one, because it was the first launch of my brand new course German Uncovered. This is a story-based German course going from zero all the way to B1. There was much to do, and it meant a few early mornings and evening shifts. If you’re on the course, give me a shout. I’m so excited to finally share it with you.

In June, I also attended my first Canterbury Pride celebration and took a lovely week off travelling to Marseille. I also attended the People's Vote March in London.

Learning Welsh

Welsh is still my main language, though it came up a little short this month.

Cymraeg Gogledd neu Cymraeg De?

One thing that slowed me down was my belief that I should switch from the Northern Welsh accent (which I’d studied for 2+ years) to the Southern Welsh accent. Why? Because I moved from North to South in England.

This turns out to be a silly idea. When people tell me “everyone will understand you no matter what accent”, they are right. When they say “only a few words are different”, they aren’t right. Even though it’s possible to understand both types of Welsh, learning to speak them both is harder than I thought. Just look at these two sentences:

1. North Welsh: Dw i eisiau gorffen cyn yfory.

2. South Welsh: Dw i’n moyn cwpla cyn yfory.

As far as I know, these are supposed to mean the same thing, but all native Welsh speakers will understand both.

My tutor at the Welsh class I attended told me “no mixing your accents”, which has made the idea of switching what I’ve studied next to impossible. My italki tutor is a lot more chilled, saying it doesn’t really matter as long as I’m not taking formal tests.

Conclusion: Welsh accents are confusing. I think I’ll declare Project Southern Welsh something I don’t want to continue. I stopped making progress because I felt trapped in this whole accent confusion, when it’s not that relevant. For now, I’ll speak how I speak and let life go on.

Let’s look at the goals from last month.

Listening

I had hoped to continue watching the series Ffit Cymru. But the show’s focus on weight loss as a measure of all good in the world started getting on my nerves. So I watched perhaps one more episode, and my listening in Welsh came up a little short.

Reading

I had hoped to finish the book Sgwp (there should be a ^ on the w but my keyboard can’t cope), and I’m getting behind on this one. But I did take my edition of the magazine Lingo Newydd with me and read it on the beach in France. Result!

One cool new resource I’m using in Welsh now is parallel.cymru, a website featuring parallel articles in Welsh and English. I’m loving the fact that I can read more on screen now, and I even submitted an article myself.

Click here to read my article on parallel.cymru in English or Welsh

Speaking

My goal was to fit in two 30 minute sessions with my tutor Gwyneth, and I did succeed. Scheduling these in advance was a huge help. I was a worse speaker than usual due to the accent kerfuffle, and due to speaking French for 10 days this month. But overall, mission accomplished.

Writing

I wanted to stick with poetry and write a haiku in Welsh, but I didn’t get it done. I didn’t even write much else. WARGH.

Daily Contact Goal

In May, I logged 14 days of contact with the Welsh language. Pretty good considering I was very busy with the German course, and also spent 10 days in France. My most used resources were Lingo Newydd, Ap Geiriaduron, and italki.

Speaking French In France

My second language of June was French, as I recorded my first bilingual podcast in French and English and then took some time off in Marseille. I had a great time, and noticed the difference a week in the country makes.

I was able to speak French pretty well anyway, as it’s a language I’ve studied on and off for 22 years. The week in France worked wonders for my comprehension and my speaking confidence. I refreshed all those everyday phrases like “you’re welcome”, “that was awesome”, or “for takeaway, please”.

I also learnt I enjoy being not-perfect at French. Here in England, I speak a foreign language almost every minute of every day. It doesn’t feel all that foreign anymore. But in French, I am still a learner. There’s a challenge, and that felt great because challenge means progress.

We didn’t stay in the main tourist quarter, and so a lot of people were amused and curious about this German and English couple where only one half speaks French. My husband relied on my French skills and I could tell that speaking the language was an advantage almost everywhere.

Good to Remember: People Switch To English For THEIR Reasons

In a busy restaurant, the host told me how to get to my table in French. It was noisy, and I didn’t understand what he was saying. I said Pardon? and he switched to English. I told him that I do speak French and he can speak to me in French.

His answer? “It is very busy here and I can speak English. In other words: He was too busy to slow down. He didn’t care if I speak French well, and he wasn’t judging my language skills. This was about getting something done.

If you’ve ever been in a similar situation, remember that people switch languages because it’s best for them. When someone switches to English, it’s often because they have other things on their mind than your language progress. Click to read more about this and get tips for dealing with the situation.

Goals For July 2018

Now that I’m in the intermediate haze with Welsh, I find it more important than ever to keep going forward. Happy to put French to one side and focus on Welsh again this month, especially because at the start of August I want to go to the National Eisteddfod again!

Listening

So disappointed I can’t watch the World Cup with Welsh commentary! I need to get ready for the Eisteddfod so it’s time to hear a lot of Welsh. I will Listen to Welsh For 90 Minutes Every Week Doesn’t matter if it’s the Pigion podcast or a show on S4C, the most important thing is that I hear a lot of Welsh right now.

Reading

Try and Finish The Book Sgwp Same as last month!

Speaking

Have 1 Long Lesson and 3 Conversations Loved having shorter classes in June (I scheduled 30 minutes at lunch times) and I’ll keep going with that, but as we know I struggle with yes/no in Welsh so I’ll also book a long lesson to drill these specifically.

And it’s time to catch up with my exchange partner!

Writing

Every month, I read about poetry and I read some poetry. But I’ve not written any. Goal: Write 1 Poem, Any Kind

Maybe asking myself to even to a Haiku was too much, a hurdle in front of getting started. So I will dial down the ambition one more. Easy.

Finally there is one more language I am playing around with, but here’s why I’m not learning Chinese right now.

Chinese

I’m still not learning Chinese. I’m going at the pace of two words a week. There’s so much in this language: words, tones, characters, all of it unknown to me. I can best describe this as a Prep phase, way before “learning the language”. I don’t want to put pressure on myself at this stage at all, and all I’m doing is driven by curiosity.

I had a similar phase in Russian and Welsh, where I’m currently at A1 and B1. Prep phases feel so valuable to me, especially when the other language is different from the ones I already know.

The Prep Phase And My Languages

Here’s an overview of the languages I know:

I speak German and English at native levels. (C2)

I’m fluent in French (C1?).

I’m conversational in Welsh, if the conversation partner helps me. (B1)

I’m somewhat conversational in Spanish, if the conversation partner helps me loads. (A1-A2)

I can read Spanish, Italian, some Latin. (A1)

I can read Cyrillic and exchange basic pleasantries in Russian. (A1)

I’ve never done much with Asian languages.

If I started to learn Romanian or Swedish I probably wouldn’t need a Prep phase. But with a new unfamiliar system, I find this extremely useful. If I decide to take this further, dabbling with tones and apps could turn into learning Chinese for real. But for now, I’m just learning about the language.

How Was YOUR Month?

Do you have a Prep phase too? Are you struggling with accents in your target language?

I would love to read about what you’re up to in the comments below!

If you want to join the linkup and share your own goals for the month, hop on to Clear The List with Lindsay Williams and Shannon Kennedy.

[billlskarsgard-blog]

Värvet pod with Bill Skarsgard.

Bill Skarsgard, 27 years old and already spot on as an actor. It’s not news that Bill Skarsgard is a flaming hot name in Hollywood. Now he’s on the big screen in over 70 countries worldwide. He has walked the old path to a great career, from smaller jobs that developed into bigger ones. Bill has before IT gotten smaller attention in the media. He’s born 1990, fourth child of Stellan Skarsgard. It’s been seven years since his debut in Simple Sinom and Behind blue skies. In 2013 he got his first international role in Hemlock Grove. He’s in Sweden to promote his new upcoming movie IT.

Kristoffer: Talk.

Bill: Hello, Hello, can you hear me?

K: Yes I can hear you perfectly.

B: Little to good maybe.

K: You’re good.

*Laughing*

K: Where are we?

B: We’re at The Grand Hotel.

K: Yes that’s right, how are you? B: I’m good,very good. I currently at my third cup of coffee for the day.

K: Well, now you’ve been acting for such a long period of time, yet you’ve only had this amount of attention these past 4 years. B: I don’t think I’ve ever had this amount of attention before. It a new feeling however ti’s a movie that’s got a worldwide interest which is a rather odd feeling.

K: How does it feel, I mean it’s a part of your job? B: It’s surreal. So many people interested in the movie, for example Dwayne ’The Rock’ Johnson the muscle guy in Fast and Furious posted a picture of Pennywise and wrote that it was his favorit movie, the directors and actors are great and that Bill Skarsgard is a great Pennywise. It’s absurd since he got over 90 Million followers. Plus the movie is out now in the US.

K: Do you enjoy it? The attention. B: I don’t know. I like the experience, it’s fun and all that yet I can’t say I’m someone who enjoys or finds it necessary to get all the attention. I like to separate my private life and my professional acting life. Like I don’t have the need for Twitter and Instagram.

K: Yet you’re active on social media right? B: No.

K: So you have other people doing it for you then? B: No, there’s no one doing that or what do you mean?

K: Because I’m following you all those platforms you just mentioned. Or I thought I did. B: Really? But no, that’s not me. I know that there’s is Twitter accounts that claiming to be me and then there’s fan accounts but they’ve made it very clear that they’re only fan accounts. However I’m not so sure what to do about that. I’ve thought about creating an account so people would know the truth like even you believe that those accounts were real.

K: Okay because it says ’Sorry for being so bad at posting here, I’m using my Instagram more’ which makes it rather believable. B: I think it’s rather creepy. *Laughs*

K: For me it’s huge that you been sitting next to Jimmy Kimmel as a guest, how did it feel? B: Absurd. I thought what am I supposed to do on an american talkshow for the first time. Who am I supposed to be? That nice, relaxed and perfect actor, being THE moviestar or that awkward, mystical artist. It’s the question about who you present yourself to an audience. Beforehand I had some ideas. Who are you supposed to be infront of an audience at Jimmy Kimmel. I was told a few week before that I was going to be on Jimmy Kimmel and got terrified, fun and surreal. As time passed I got calm since being on Jimmy Kimmel is just like doing any other interview I do all the time. However not to make this story longer than it has to be I got there and they guided me into this greenroom with my agents and managers to get ready. As I’m getting ready there’s this screen with the show on so I’m sitting there, getting my make up ready and Jimmy suddenly said ’Tonights guest is Bill Skarsgard from IT’. When I heard that it was such a bizarre feeling, like there’s one of those glitches in Matrix, he’s not supposed to say my name. Then someone walks inside and says that it’s my turn before guiding me into this room which is not bigger than a wardrobe with a big door. They explain to me what’s going to happen, that Jimmy will say a few things before the door opens before they leaved me alone in there. However I think they did that a little too early since I probably stood there for about 2 minutes as the show is ongoing outside that big door. When I finally walked out and me Jimmy for the first time I wanted to say that ”This feels like a glitch in Matrix” however he just says ”Hi you’re from Sweden how’s that?” and I’m just like ”Ehm, yeah it’s good,” which made him smile. Then I realized that I have no control over this what so ever, all I need is to keep up with him thought out the interview.

K: So you didn’t know what he would say beforehand? B: Yes, before meeting him I had a smaller interview with the team and project leaders told me that Jimmy would talk about my Swedish origin in the beginning.

K: Then the question is, which Bill Skarsgard did we see on Jimmy Kimmel? B: I have to say myself. When I had thought about it, it felt better to just be myself. I didn’t feel like being someone I’m not. Yet it’s a pretty deep question who you are when you really think about it.

K: Now you’ve been working over there for about five years now, I know that when you first got there you got a language coach. As a guest on Jimmy Kimmel, did you feel nervous about letting your Swedish tongue slip through? B: No, I’ve been over there for such a long time now. I think I’ve even reached that point where it feels easier to express myself in English than in Swedish or at least it takes some time to switch to Swedish when I return home. As I said it’s because I’ve been there for such a long time, I have been doing a lot of interviews, jobs and not to mention I have very close friends there as well.

K: Amazing, I actually spoke to a close friend that moved to New York and told him that he’s like a whole new person when he’s speaking English. When he speaks Swedish he this very self-contained which is the total opposite when he’s speaking English, then he’s all flirty and such. B: Really? K: Yes B: Did you notice that or did he tell you? K: I noticed it yet I don’t know if he agrees with me. So my question is do you feel like you’re different when you’re speaking English? B: I don’t think so. Swedish people are one of the best English speakers from non english speaking countries, as well as Holland. Like you don’t have to learn Swedish to talk to a swede, you can speak English to anyone. However when you’re in a country or in a group with English as their native language then you might feel a little restrained since you can tell jokes in the same way and when you try to tell a story or so it get’s all confusing. For me I had that feeling when I was younger however I think I’ve developed so much and I don’t feel restrained when I’m speaking which is amazing.

K: Have you listened to Värvet before? B: A little yet I don’t listen a lot on radio. You do podcasts as well right? K: This is a podcast. B: See, I can’t tell.

K: I usually got more time to interview my guests so let’s get to it. You’re Pennywise in IT, this might sound odd, but is Pennywise a main character? B: Ehm.. I wouldn’t say that. I am the titel roll, but the shark in Jaws is not the main character (In Swedish is: Hajen in Hajen.) K: The shark didn’t won an Oscar. B: Or the T-rex in Jurassic Park. I’m doing the iconic character but no the main.

K: Your career in America has gone by fast, how do you feel about it? B: No, I don’t know if I feel that way. The first international project I ever did was Hemlock Grove over five years ago. I’m 27 now so five years is a pretty long period of time. I’m a whole new person now than I was back then yet I won’t be a new person in five years. The age 22-27 there’s a log going on and you develop as a human being. So my career since my first job till now have been a long one.

K: The most difficult times? B: In life or? K: These years, but yeah sure. B: I don’t know. When I first read the scrip to Hemlock Grove I loved the pilot. I thought that it would be an interesting project with a script I loved, the words were amazing and the writer whose one of my best friends today. However I didn’t know him then. Sadly I got to see what the industry can do to a project. It didn’t develop in the direction I thought it would, there was a lot of politics surrounding it. It was rather odd for me because when you work with movies or series, in Sweden you have a director who’s written the script him/herself and is fully in charge. In the end of Hemlock Groveit felt like no one or everyone were in charge. Then suddenly they changed the writer and practically everyone else before season 2-3. It went from a character I loved to someone who said things I didn’t like and the story was not what I expected. The last year in Toronto with a temperature about 20 below zero. I’ve never faced such a chilly climate and I’m from Stockholm, however then it felt like my character where in the hands of others. As the result of that I lived a very destructive life with Landon who also starring in Hemlock Grove.

K: You’ve said that before, living destructively, what do you mean? Drugs and alcohol? B: Well, the destructive part is that you don’t care for yourself. Some people might never leave the bed but I’m not like that. I got myself into destructive relationships in one way or another. I wouldn’t call it depression since it’s something completely different and way more serious. Maybe more aggression. Yet when I look back those years were very formative for me. I got a lot of experience about the industry, everything behind it, politics and how I react to it. I wouldn’t change it for anything. K: Yet you’re not proud of the outcome of the product? B: People like the series and it got some charm to it. A few things are nice yet for me it’s more about my own personal journey. The series were based on a book I liked, then people who shouldn’t be involved with the creative process joined the production. K: Then you shouldn’t work with advertising, that happens everyday. B: I can see that. K: You said you didn’t do anything else after that for about six months. B: Correct. K: How do you feel about that? B: I don’t know. As an actor you get a lot of free time, between jobs you’re unemployed. I like free time when you got a job but I dislike being unemployed since I don’t know when or if I’m getting my next job. It’s rather stressful.

K: How do you deal with that? B: I don’t know. I’m trying to keep myself occupied, trying to develop my own things. K: Are you writing something on your own? B: Yes, I’ve started recently since I find it rather intriguing. I don’t like the passiveness in being an actor, you always rely on other people thing about you. It makes you feel helpless which I don’t like. That’s why I want to create things on my own. Now I need to find a script I like, then I have to fit to the script to get a chance to go to an audition so I can try to convince them that I can do it. K: Can you say anything about what you’re writing? B: Yes, I’m writing a script to a short film. I’m taking small steps to get to where I want in the future, to direct as well. K: I wanted to avoid to talk about your family, however it feel like you’re the only one doing that out of everyone whose acting. B: No, Gustaf and Alexander has written and even directed a few things. K: Oh sorry for my lack of information. B: Everyone has different needs. My father has never directed even if I think he would be amazing at doing so but he doesn’t have that need.

K: You’re literally the it actor now. How do you managing with that? B: I’ve got one agent and manager in the US. They are very good at doing business over there. I only pay my agents when I’ve been given a job. They are extremely good at their job, woking to get the job, build an interest around me, making sure that job open other doors to more interesting productions for me. K: What are you aiming for? B: I want my acting to become something I can work with my whole life. I don’t want to end up at Marvel, DC or the other popcorn movies. I don’t have an interest in that. I want to establish myself, work with interesting and inspiring parts. What’s motivating me is opening new doors and meet new people.

K: Are you allowed to tell what you earn with a movie like IT? B: Ehm no… Well I’m allowed to but I don’t like to talk about it.

K: I have to say that I know a certain child who accidentally stumbled upon the IT trailer which has given me a few sleepless nights. B: And how did this certain someone see it? K: On YouTube. B: Did you show it? K: No, he/she found it. B: You have to be careful. You can say you’ve met me and that it’s not real. K: Before he/she went to bed I said that IT lives in the US and that it’s not real before asking what sounded more reliable and got the answer that it wasn’t real. B: That’s good.

K: We talked about language. I think its difficult to tell when for example Swedish shines through in the accent, it only happens a few times that I notice it. Is it easier to act on English in productions? Now since you gotten more used to the language. B: First of all it’s more difficult to act when you don’t fully master the language. I will never be able to speak a language as good as the one with the language as their mother tongue. In Swedish you can quickly hear when it’s false or if it sounds strange, stressed words. The better you master a language the better you are able to deliver the lines. Yet you can deliver a line perfectly however the melody or how you say it can destroy it. Sometimes when people from english speaking countries watch Swedish movies they can say ”That was a good actor,” because they can see the feeling behind the lines they don’t understan. K: Maybe that’s why Wallander has reached such success internationally even if Krister Henriksson isn’t proud over the movies.

K: What are you doing at the moment? B: Filming for Hulu. I don’t think we got Hulu in sweden, the big companies are Netflix, Amazon and Hulu and probably in that order as well. Hulu made The Handmaiden’s Tale which was viewable on HBO Nordic. However the series is called Castle Black and Stephen King is exclusive producer. K: He likes you. B: *Laughs* At least the ones behind the project likes me. However Castle Black is a city that’s reoccurring in King’s books. I’m not allowed to say anything yet there’s a new story in each season and I’m in the first one. I’m leaving on Monday for Boston. It’s a fun, interesting character and different from what I’ve done before but it’s still a scary theme. K: Typecasting, does that ever worry you? B: I don’t know. I think as an actor you need to work against your type, making sure you’re not working with the same thing over and over, to get new challenges. With that said I like dark characters, stories which I have nothing against. It inspires me.

K: Have you met Stephen King? B: No. K: I saw an interview with him where he says that he liked you as IT. B: Yes, he likes the movie which it rather unusual since he’s rather difficult to impress. If he likes something, he will say it. If he doesn’t like something he will say it. But for him to say that he likes it means very much for everyone involved.

K: In previous interviews you’ve said that you don’t have a home. Do you? B: No. K: What do you want right now? B: My girlfriend and I are looking for places in Stockholm right now even if I probably won’t be there as much. I don’t own anything and I never had so it’s about time. Stockholm will always be my home even if I live somewhere else.

K: Do you want to recommend something? B: I’ve been listening to Sam Harris podcast named The Waking Up Call. There are interesting guests and you will enjoy it if you like politics, science and essential issues. I don’t agree with everything he says but there are good discussions. K: Who do you think I should interview on Värvet? B: I’m not good at this… I don’t know. K: It’s okay, I need to take a picture with you know before time is up. Thank you so much for this interview.

I translated this interview/podcast rather quickly. I tried to pick up everything. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it, english is not my native language so I apologize for any grammatical errors. I’ve never done this before either!

[airlinepolyglot-blog]

another infrequent update

NOTE: a few links and whatnot are missing from this post, several YouTubes, etc. I will add them very shortly, and if I do not, then please remind me!

Hello everyone, I know it’s been awhile once again. It’s not that I haven’t been doing language things (quite the contrary), but rather that I don’t have time to tell you about them. A quick rundown of what I’ll be talking about here:

Travels and how language related:

-my trip to Toronto

-my trip to Hong Kong

-a brief mention of my trip to Cancun

What I have learned, language wise, since my last update:

-Norwegian

-German

-Welsh

-Hungarian

-Russian

-Turkish

I went to Toronto with my girlfriend Marisa since my last update. Toronto is of course an English majority city so there isn’t a ton to write about that, but it’s worth noting just how bilingual Canada is in many ways. Most people in Toronto can’t speak French, or rarely speak it, but it’s as prevalent as Spanish is in the US. Everything is cosigned in both languages, and of course the government enforces Canada’s bilingualism, which was extremely interesting. I’ll be interested to visit a really bilingual city in Canada, like Ottawa or Montreal, where everyone can speak both languages.

Hong Kong had been one of my top cities to visit after I got the airline job (and before that, too). There was obviously absolutely no way it was going to disappoint, and luckily it didn’t in the slightest. Definitely the best place I have been to to date (lovely English right there!), on so many levels. It’s extremely welcoming and inviting to an outsider, insanely easy to get around, very safe, etc. But to the world tourist, the level of English spoken in Hong Kong is extremely impressive. Literally everyone in Hong Kong spoke English that I spoke with, to a very good degree. Curiously, the Filipino domestic helpers spoke some of the poorest english (they stuck to Tagalog), and more obviously, the mainland tourists spoke very little (if any) English. I used Mandarin a few times, but interestingly I used German quite a bit (there’s apparently quite a bit of German expatriation in Hong Kong). I was caught off guard with the German, considering I was fairly out of practice (but usually made out just fine!), but I came armed with the Mandarin. Using HelloChinese and a few audio resources (Living Language) I had a conversational amount down, though I never used it to that degree (it would just be pointing someone in the right direction or making small talk), after really seeing Mainland Chinese in action in Hong Kong, I felt very motivated to really work on my Mandarin. Sadly, I haven’t much since my trip ended, but I’m sure I’ll pick it back up at some point - I love Mandarin and always preach how simple it is to everyone and tell people it’s far easier than people think. Because it is...once you accept that the characters are an “over time” thing. And as expected, the little Cantonese I spoke (“ni ho”, “mh’goi”, “ching”, etc) was received very well, but considering how widely English was spoken, it was just my sign of gratitude to the natives.

I did visit Cancun, Mexico with Marisa as well, because it was affordable, accessible, and warm. While it wasn’t great (we had a good time together though), I’ll of course cover the language situation there. Largely of course English to cater to tourists, a few people did indeed lead with Spanish, which was surprising. I had an Uber driver who only spoke Spanish and so he and I pieced through a conversation together, and he was helping me learn. But still, the Spanish language and I don’t really click sadly. A shame, as I want to visit Madrid, Colombia (any city), Santiago de Chile, and of course return to Buenos Aires. But luckily Marisa knows and likes Spanish, so she can come with me and help out with that until I’m back on track.

Okay, now an update on my language study stuff. I could post Duolingo stats but eh I don’t think those give as accurate an estimation as me describing my progress. So, I’ve been focusing on Norwegian a lot recently, which is without question my favorite language. I’ve been really focused on finishing the tree, and am at Level 17 on Duolingo. Admittedly, Duolingo is the only resource I’m using for Norwegian right now. No books, no YouTube, no audio, just Duolingo. So the terrible robot voice that Duo uses is my only way of hearing the language at the moment, but I’m doing that on purpose. Going to finish the tree and really have this language down, and then see how quickly I really pick up on it when I hear it spoken by actual people. It’s such a simple and logical language on almost every level that it’s amazing. The grammar is just so much more simple than any other language. The verb conjugations (or relative lack thereof), definite articles (which are suffixes), word order, negation (just “ikke”) just all make so much sense. The amazing Paul (Langfocus) did an awesome video about Norwegian and its relation to Swedish and Danish, with a lesser extent Faroese and Icelandic (both of which are far more complicated grammatically than the other three). In an ideal world, the Vikings and their successors would’ve pushed for Norwegian (or Swedish, but I like Norwegian and the culture of Norway just a bit more) to be the universal language of the world instead of English. Norwegian is an easier and better language than English, and it’s far more logical in ways (grammatically and pronounced) than English ever could be. It (as well as Swedish and Danish) also lacks the case system that comes along with German, which makes it much easier to learn than the main language of its family. Through Norwegian, you can almost fully understand Swedish. I haven’t done Swedish on Duolingo at all, but I can read Swedish text incredibly well, point out and translate words in IKEA, and breeze through Memrise and Tinycards decks, thanks to my understanding of Norwegian. I can understand written Danish to the same degree, but it’s a wildly different language when spoken. I haven’t studied Danish much, but I’m sure once you’re used to how they pronounce things (like Spanish/Portuguese differences), you’ll be in great shape. I can’t wait to hopefully visit Oslo this summer, as I still have not gotten to speak Norwegian in real life at all yet, but am confident I can do so….well, confidently. We will find out soon.

I am returning to Germany in a few weeks, and in preparation I’m of course going through my German resources again. Reguilding Duolingo, going through some advanced levels on Memrise, playing around on Babadum, and things like that. German is annoyingly difficult/tricky in so many ways (and after learning one of the North Germanic languages, it will frustrate you more once you’ve learned just how simple it all can be!!!), but I’m convinced the language runs through my blood and is almost second nature to me at this point, which I’m extremely grateful for. I can jump into conversations often, understand it when I hear it (even Swiss German!), and generally carry myself along. I just wish it wasn’t so difficult for new learners who aren’t picking it up in a classroom setting - it really is a difficult language to teach yourself, especially if you’ve never dealt with a three gender language AND one that has a case system, no less. Plus, “sie” can mean she/formal you/they, which I’m sure can certainly trip anyone up. That’s just a bit impractical, but luckily I have that advantage I guess.

I dabbled briefly in Welsh on Duolingo. A very fun and surprisingly simple language, I put it on hold temporarily due to my desire to focus on other languages. Nonetheless, I found it super interesting, though of course often difficult to pronounce. The “dd” sound in Welsh is maybe the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted to pronounce, and I’m convinced only natives will ever master it. I want to see this language kept alive, so certainly give it a shot - the Duolingo course is wonderful and very well designed, and this YouTube video (linked within the course) will teach you how to pronounce the language very well.

My last three languages I’ll sort of talk about together. They are Russian, Hungarian, and Turkish. Three languages from different families (but I guess a similar part of the world), but damn are they a lot of fun to me. I’m actually glad I waited a week to write this post, as I attempted to look at Turkish again last night for the first time in ages and it suddenly made tons of sense to me - being an agglutinative language and all, just like Hungarian and to a lesser extent Russian. All three of these languages are pretty “out there” for an English speaker, and I’ll agree, some of the trickiest for an English speaker to learn, as they have a lot of rules. But honestly that’s a lot of the fun, once you get the rules down and can form sentences and work with the case system (all three languages feature a case system), you feel really accomplished speaking these beautiful languages. Russian always tends to amaze me, the amount of loanwords and similar vocabulary in Russian will really surprise you. Once you master the Cyrillic alphabet, I bet you could look at a Russian text and point out so many words that are similar to the Romance or Germanic languages. This makes for fun learning once you figure out the Slavic twist to put on each word. The lack of articles in Russian and verb “to be” is of course a massive advantage - once you dig into the language you realize just how much of a blessing this is. I’m really enjoying Russian, and while I still make plenty of grammar mistakes and still struggle to pronounce some things, I can’t wait to really get this language down and be able to speak it with confidence. While I won’t be able to speak Hungarian with sure confidence probably for a long time, it’s an extremely fun language to me. It has something like 15 cases - definitely an extreme amount, and not a language for the faint of heart, but if you’re really into this kind of thing you may want to look into it. The alphabet and pronunciation are quite simple once you get them down, and word order is very free thanks to the case system (similar to Russian!). Plus, the Hungarian people are great and amazed anyone attempts to learn their very hard language. I’m going to see for myself when I go to Budapest next month and attempt to drag some Hungarian out (they’re also attempting to learn English widespread, as tourism in Hungary amongst Europeans is climbing), and we’ll see if the rumors are true about how happy Hungarians are that we even let out a “szia” (hello/goodbye) or a “köszönöm” (thank you) in conversation. If you’re scared off by Russian’s foreign alphabet and Hungarian’s crazy amount of cases, then maybe Turkish is a good place to start if you’re interested in an agglutinative language that differs wildly from English and the languages similar (romance/germanic). Turkish follows a Subject+Object+Verb order which is kind of fun because you know the action is always at the end, and the vocabulary is very cool (and apparently features tons of Persian and Arabic loanwords). While I haven’t dove too deep into Turkish, by the time my next update rolls around, I believe I will have more to tell you, as I plan to get right back to Turkish on Duolingo once I’ve posted this. While neither Turkey (political situation) nor Russia (complicated visa issues) would be suitable to visit now, Azerbaijan would be a good place I think, as a large part of the population still speaks Russian, a lot speak English (thanks to all the expats), and their native language, Azerbaijani (or Azeri Turkish) is apparently very close to Turkish, so someone who knows Turkish well can quickly pick up on Azerbaijani. I wonder if the differences are as close as Norwegian to Swedish or more like Spanish to Italian. Maybe I’ll know by the time I write here next.

I also am attempting to learn the Greek alphabet because why not (the lowercase letters are throwing me off big time - why must they be different from the uppercase?!) and of course still looking at Italian, French, etc from time to time. I don’t have any decent observations on these developments.

Hopefully I’ll write to you all again soon. Follow me on Instagram or something if you’d like more frequent updates about my life.

[yoyo-inspace]

Let’s not forget Hans Rosling

Not that I think we will. But it’s something I feel the need to say out loud to ensure myself of it.

Woke up this morning to finding out that Swedish statistician, public speaker, doctor and academic Hans Rosling had died. It hit me harder than I thought it would, the more I thought about it.

Of course, my thoughts go out to his family and friends first and foremost. But I just had to take a few moments to think of how many things he made me think differently of and how I still refer to him to this day.

You might not recognize the name, but perhaps you’ve seen his videos?

Hans Rosling was a professor of international health. He took his knowledge and created incredible computer programs and graphics because what he wanted was to educate, and he realized that one of the best ways of educating was through visual entertainment. He was incredibly pedagogic. He knew how to teach. 

This was a man who spoke about global health, global warming, economy, development, immigration and world population and he constantly kept his positive outlook on the world and truly believed that we could become better.

(He was also involved in starting the Swedish branch of MSF.)

Somehow, it feels like an extra huge tragedy to lose someone who was so dedicated to fact-based science and the importance of educating right now of all times. No, people never die at the right time. But for me, it felt like his death highlighted why we have to keep speaking up, why we have to keep being more vigilant than ever when it comes to our sources and to guard science and statistics so that they don’t become twisted by political agendas. 

As he said himself, when talking about Sweden’s own populist right-wing party: “We must not let the Swedish Democrats get monopoly on the truth, it is very dangerous to do so.” And I think that rings true for a lot of people today.

He was an amazing man. He made numbers and statistics fun for many, you know? With his somewhat broken english and colorful dots he made people enjoy it. And even though he was talking about world hunger or poverty he truly made people believe that we are on our way to a better world. 

So if you haven’t, I’d really recommend to check some of his stuff out. We need to ensure what he dedicated so much of his life to lives on, because it is so important right now. 

TED Talks: The best Hans Rosling talks you’ve ever seen - In memory of a great man and the numbers he loved.

Population growth and climate change explained by Hans Rosling in under four minutes

In Honor of Hans Rosling, Watch Some of his Best Videos (with article)

Or just about any video with him you can find on youtube.

Thanks for reading.

[onlycags]

Movie Night 5 | Çağlar Söyüncü

April: Schmeichel Alternate Title: Kas Looks Like Dolph Lundgren - Fight Me!

- - - 

There were about ten times a day that you opened Çağlar’s contact info on your phone and started to type out a text before groaning in frustration and throwing your phone on your bed.

After a week of doing this, you finally gave up and sent a text to Madders.

You: Would it be weird if I texted Çağlar outside of the group chat?

It took him hours to respond, your anxiety growing when you realized you had messaged him during training and another one of the guys could easily pick up your mate’s phone and read your pathetic question.

Finally, he texted back and you lunged for your phone.

Madders: Just Nike that shit and fucking do it already! You’re a strong, independent woman and you don’t need me to tell you what to do.

Frustrated, you buried your face in one of your many pillows and screamed. A few minutes later, you typed out a ‘casual’ hello message and closed your eyes as you hit send.

~

Meanwhile, at Belvoir Drive, Çağlar had just received a text from you and he couldn’t believe it. The Turk smiled to himself as he typed out a response, happy to hear from you. “Ooh, Cags! Who ya texting?” Barnes asked, peering around Çağlar’s back to try to get a glimpse of the screen. “Is it an actual, human woman?”

Çağlar grunted, shoving Harvey aside without looking up from his phone. “Leave me alone, Barnes.” His phone vibrated with your response, asking if he wanted to hang out sometime. He was still working on his English slang, so he looked up and addressed the changing room. “What does it mean when someone says you should hang out sometime?”

The lads had been very understanding since he had started, always helping him with his English and making sure he felt comfortable using it both on and off the pitch. “Who’s asking?” Vardy asked, appearing out of nowhere. “Man or woman?”

“Woman.”

“Can you trust her?”

Çağlar furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

“He means,” Madders chimed in, “can you trust her to not leak information from the press? Can you trust that she isn’t just using you for fame or to get ahead?

Çağlar nodded. He trusted Madders’s judgment in people, and you were his closest friend off the pitch, “Yes.”

“Her asking you to hang out could mean one of two things,” Ben cut in. “The first is that she just wants to hang out as friends, the other means that she wants to sleep with you.”

“How do I know which is which?”

“You’ll have to ask her, but don’t ask her right away.” Gray said.

Çağlar’s head was swimming. His phone vibrated again and he sighed. Luckily, Madders walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him aside. “Look, Cags, if the girl is who I think she is, you don’t have to worry about anything. Just take her to your favorite place for coffee and go from there.”

He nodded, trying to process everything. Throwing his phone in his bag, he made his way out of the changing room and went home.

***

It had been two weeks since you had asked Çağlar if h would like to hang out. Two weeks since he had left you on read. You were trying really hard not to let it bother you - he was a footballer, his life was hectic - but you had also been so sure that there was something between you two.

You hadn’t been in a serious relationship since uni a few years prior, a disaster that had ended in him cheating on you and making you feel worthless overall. Lately, everyone seemed to either be in a relationship or be complaining about dating men and demanding better. You had seen numerous tweets and posts that were like ‘if a man really likes you, he’ll be texting you constantly’ or ‘don’t waste time on people that don’t call you randomly to see how you’re doing,’ and it was all starting to get in your head. Maybe you had come on too strong or maybe you had just misread all the signs these past three months.

It was the last weekend of March which meant International matches. You had already texted James and Ben to wish them luck before their match against Italy as you anxiously waited for the match to get underway.

Çağlar had played earlier in the day and, by some miracle, the match had been televised on British telly - probably because he was Leicester’s up-and-coming player. You had screamed so loud when he had scored his second career goal for the Turkish National Team you were sure your neighbours wanted to kill you.

That was your current dilemma - it was nearing 8pm in Leicester, so you knew it was close to 11 in Turkey. You had been debating this with yourself since the match ended almost three hours ago, and you figured you were probably losing your congratulations-text-window.

Fuck it, you decided. It was an international match, and Çağlar was probably out with his mates celebrating their win. He was probably still up and even if he wasn’t, he would wake up to it.

You: Congrats on the win! Your goal was amazing!

You breathed out and hit send, squeezing your eyes shut like the last time you had texted him. Your phone vibrated, and you looked at his message all the air leaving your lungs when you read his response.

Çağlar: Thank you. That goal was for you.

You spent the next two hours watching Chilly and Madders in their match against Italy, but you couldn’t concentrate on anything other than Çağlar’s text. Every time you thought about it, your stomach flipped and you couldn’t help smiling to yourself. You hated to admit it, but that text made up for the fact that you hadn’t heard from him in two weeks.

England won, 2-1 against Italy, and you fired off texts to Madders and Chilly, smiling at their GIF responses. Tired, you went to bed, falling asleep in Çağlar’s jersey.

Next week was movie night and you couldn’t wait.

***

Everything seemed to happen in a blur and before you knew it, it was movie night. It was Kasper Schmeichel’s turn, and, in keeping with ‘tradition’ at this point, he had yet to announce the movie.

Everyone was seated on the sofa and floor, chatting away like mad. It seemed the Leicester City teammates had missed each other dearly while on international duty and it brought a smile to your face. You were currently sandwiched between Chilly and Madders, half-listening as you tried to figure out how you were going to get a chance to speak to Çağlar tonight. Evans, Tielemans, and Fuchs were not in attendance - Evans and Tielemans returning to their wives and children after being away on international duty; Fuchs as he wanted some quality time with his family - so only nine of you were here tonight. At Fuchs’s noticeable second-time absence, Harvey had suggested keeping a talley who skipped movie night most and fining them somehow. Everyone laughed, but you knew there would probably a discussion going down in the group chat about it this week.

“Alright, everyone!” Schmeichel ordered, clapping his hands together as if you were all on the pitch and he was captain. “I have picked tonight’s film. Luckily for you, it is not a Danish classic - Stine talked me out of it, so please thank her profusely the next time you see her - it is one of my favourite action movies of the last decade. It is also the extended director’s cut because I said so.” A light chuckle sounded at that last bit, growing as Barnes tossed some popcorn in Schmeichel’s direction.

The lights turned down - you were still seated in between Chilly and Madders - and opening to the first Expendables movie started. “Wait! Pause the movie!” Harvey called out, throwing popcorn at the screen.

“No!” Schmeichel responded, kicking the youngster with his toe.

“Did you pick this movie because you look like Dolph Lundgren?” Harvey asked, talking over the movie.

That got Kasper to pause the movie, as everyone burst out laughing. Choruses of “Oh my god! I never noticed!” and “He could be your dad, Kas!” rang out.

“Kas, can you go back and pause the movie on Lundgren’s face so we can do a frame-by-frame?” Madders asked cheekily, earning a glare from the Dane.

Demarai Gray let out a laugh, holding up his phone. “Dolph Lundgren is Swedish - he’s practically your dad!”

That had everyone cracking up again as Kasper tried in vain to explain geography to his laughing teammates. They all loved to rile up the captain - he was always so calm and collected both on and off the pitch, but he needed to be reminded to have a little fun once in a while.

Five minutes later, once everyone was calm(ish), Kasper restarted the movie. Once Harvey had said it, it was impossible to ignore - Kas did, in fact, look like Dolph Lundgren. You had seen The Expendables before, as your father was a huge fan of American action films, and now that you had seen the comparison, you couldn’t unsee it.

The movie ended, and you teared up a little. You had forgotten how it ended, and now you wanted to binge the second and third films. Everyone said their goodbyes, now referring to Kas as ‘Dolph,’ much to his feigned annoyance.

Just as you were about to walk over to Madders’s car, a hand on your arm stopped you. “Can I take you home?” Çağlar asked, his accent sending goosebumps racing over your skin.

“Sure.” You shot off a text to Mads letting him know the change in plans, and he quickly sent you a thumbs-up emoji followed by a winky-face.

You got in Çağlar’s car, realizing that up until now, you had no idea that he could drive, let alone owned a car in Leicester. You thought about making idle chit-chat but thought better of it. Some Turkish pop played softly over the speaker and you found yourself asking, “Who’s singing?”

“Müsaadenle,” He responded, making a right turn with one hand. “She is one of my favourites.”

You agreed, playing with your hands in your lap as you listened to the beautiful song. “What is she saying?”

“It is about losing love and moving on.”

Not knowing what to say, you only spoke to give Çağlar directions to your flat. When you arrived, you weren’t sure what to do.

“Thank you for driving me, Çağlar,” you said, reaching for the door handle.

“Can I walk you to your door?” He asked, and you nodded, trying and failing to ignore the butterflies in your stomach.

You took two flights of stairs up to the third floor, stopping at apartment 317. “Well, this is me,” you said awkwardly, rummaging around your bag for your keys. In a moment of weakness, you asked, “Would you like to come in for a drink?”

“Okay,” he replied, following you inside. You take off your ballet flats at the entrance and he does the same with his trainers. Your stomach flutters at the thought of how right his shoes look next to yours.

You gave him a moment to look around while you boiled some water for chamomile tea. When you turned back to face him, you noticed he was holding something in a garment box. “What’s this?” You asked, gesturing to the package.

He grinned sheepishly as he handed it to you. “This is for you.”

Your brows furrowed in confusion. “For me? Why?”

“Just open it, please. You will see.”

Warily, you took the box from his hands, your fingers brushing his. You gasped when you opened it and saw what was inside - his Turkey National Team jersey with his name and number on it. “It is the jersey I was wearing last week when I scored - I washed it, of course. I want you to have it.”

You ran your fingers over the material, awestruck at his words. “Oh, Çağlar,” you breathed out, as speechless as you were the first time he had given you a jersey. Your eyes met his as you said, “I love it. Thank you.”

Without thinking, you turned to him, placed a hand on his cheek and kissed him. His hands fell to your waist, pulling you into him. Your hands wound around his neck, threading your fingers through his hair, smiling into the kiss as he moaned at the contact.

You suck in a breath as his deft fingers slide underneath your jumper and his skin touches yours. In a split second, you find yourself being lifted off the ground and set on the counter. He steps back to look you over, heat in his eyes as you lift your jumper over your head and toss it on the floor.

“Çok güzelsin,” he murmured, hooking his fingers on the backs of your knees and pulling you so your centre is against his cock. You are so beautiful.

He’s kissing you again, his hands sliding up your back to unclasp your bra. You’re tugging at the hem of his white t-shirt until he breaks contact to pull it off. He doesn’t immediately kiss you again; instead, his calloused hands run up either side of your waist, stopping to cup your breasts. His name is on your lips as he dips his head and runs his tongue over one erect nipple. He repeats the action on the other and you can’t take it anymore, dragging him up to kiss him. “Take me to my bedroom,” you find yourself whispering, desperate to have him inside you. He picks you up, a hand on your bum and another on your lower back, nipping your collarbone and smirking at your gasp of surprise.

He eventually finds your bedroom, bumping you into the walls as he maneuvers through your small flat. You giggle, burying your head in the crook of his neck to hide your giggles. “It is not funny!” He protests as he playfully slaps your ass, a chuckle in his voice. He carefully lowers you onto the bed, taking his time as he kisses his way down your abdomen.

He unbuttons your jeans and lowers the zipper down slowly, making you whimper and try to reach down to do it yourself. “No,” he commands, his accent thick and hot. You let him, your hands fisting the bedsheets as you arch your back at the sensations.

You’re so turned on and he hasn’t even touched your pussy yet. Leaving you in your underwear, he steps back and takes off his own jeans. All you can do is look over at him, your eyes drawn to his large pulsating cock that strains against his boxers. Before you can make a move to sit up and make him feel good, he kneels at the foot of the bed in between your legs, his hands making quick work of your panties so he can spread your legs and kiss the insides of your thighs. His day-old scruff brushes against the soft, sensitive skin. “Çağlar,” his name a breathy cry on your lips.

Your eyes meet his as his tongue swipes over your clit and you writhe under his touch. “Benim için bağır,” he commands, repeating the motion. Scream for me.

Before long, an orgasm rips through you. You scream his name as your fingers fist his hair and you ride his mouth. He kisses his way up your body now, and you taste yourself on his lips when he kisses you again. His hands grip your hips again and he turns, taking you with him so you’re now straddling him. You reach in your nightstand and pull out a condom, putting it on before moaning as you sink down on his cock.

He mutters a string of Turkish, his fingers digging into your hips and suddenly you’re both cumming. You collapse onto his chest, stroking the ink on his chest you had never noticed before. “Would you like to spend the night?” You ask, hoping you don’t sound as desperate as you think you do.

“If that is okay, yes.”

You smile at his stilted response, tilting your head to kiss his cheek. “Of course it is. Let me just lock up and I’ll be right back.”

You make the rounds on your flat, locking and deadbolting the door before heading to the bathroom to wash up. When you return, Çağlar is underneath the covers waiting for you. You smile to yourself as you slip on the Turkey National Team jersey to wear to bed and crawl in with him.

[underachievers-please-try-harder]

Interview // Gwenno

I interviewed Gwenno Saunders for 7digital.

Having won the Welsh Music Prize for your debut, the reception must have surpassed your expectations?

Oh yeah, that was a massive shock. I’ve been making music for a really long time in different guises and me and my husband [Rhys Edwards] moved back to Wales and just got stuck in with what was going on Cardiff and across Wales musically. And I was rediscovering a lot of things that I grew up with. So the motivation for making [Y Dydd Olaf] was just making something that didn’t already exist.

That’s a real advantage of working in Welsh and Cornish – when you have a language that fewer people use you’ve got to make your own entertainment, and so your motivation for creating things is because they don’t exist. It’s a really natural, DIY approach to making music in general; you’re having to create content because it’s not there. And so, the fact that the album was taken up by Heavenly Recordings was such a massive added bonus. So when I was thinking about the second album I tried to remember all those motivations so I would make the right decisions. I was creating purely for myself. I’ve always wanted to make a Cornish record and so the first album gave us an opportunity to do that.

The final song on Y Dydd Olaf was in Cornish so this album does feel like a natural continuation.

Yeah, it was almost a deliberate thing. It hit home, like, “Oh god, that’s what I’ve got to do.” As far as inspirations like that – where you’re compelled to do something – it’s quite scary because obviously on paper it doesn’t look like the most naturally popular option. Because if someone’s willing to put your record out, I’m sure you can feel pressured to release something that you think the most amount of people would like. But then you’re probably imagining people that aren’t there so you might as well just concentrate on doing something that’s exciting to you.

Can you tell us about your relationship with the Cornish language?

My dad was brought up in Cornwall, so we spoke Cornish to my dad and Welsh to my mum. So when I actually went to Cornwall to visit my dad’s friends, they would all be Cornish speakers so I actually thought a lot more people spoke Cornish than did. I had a son in the period after my first album and started speaking Cornish to him, so I really just started taking ownership over something that I’d been given that was a bit of an anomaly and something that I hadn’t been fully able to explore geographically. I wanted to form my own narrative in the language, like, “Oh well here’s how I express myself through Cornish.” And also I was getting excited by meeting a lot more Cornish speakers, independently of my family.

How big is the community of Cornish speakers?

They say there are between 500 and 1000 fluent speakers and then there are 1000 or more that can understand phrases and have basic conversations. But it’s constantly growing and I love that about it. I’ve realised that I get excited about exploring the points of view that are less known or less familiar in general. You know, there’s this language that people don’t even know exists, and I’ve lived my life in this language fully. How brilliant is that? It’s worth celebrating, because the fact it exists at all is incredible, you know?

In terms of the structure of the Cornish language, does it allow nuance of expression that you couldn’t replicate in other languages?

Oh completely. Also, the Cornish language had a real renaissance at the end of the 19th and early 20th century. There was an artist called Robert Morton Nance, and he really started getting [the language] going, because up until that point people were looking at the language as something just to be documented. And the botanist Edward Lluyd too – a lot of people documented the language and phrases that were still hanging around. But then there was this conscious effort in the early 20th century, reflecting a lot of the Celtic revival that was happening in general. And obviously that came from Art Noveau and the Arts and Crafts movement of the period, because of this mass industrialisation.

So anyway, a lot of the phrases and the words were from miracle plays that were written pre-Reformation, which really excited me because there’s a strong medieval element to the language that I speak, even though I’m using it in the context of the modern world. It was exciting thinking of all the people that were speaking Cornish in the 13th century.

What are the challenges of communicating in a language that so few people speak?

I personally felt particularly fortunate, because in my creative relationship with Rhys I’ve obviously dictated what the album is sonically to an extent, but he has produced the album and engineered it, and Rhys conjures up and creates a sonic landscape. It’s a really exciting way of communicating because you’re just creating a world that you can get lost in, and so it becomes about the music. My motivating factors aren’t really that important to the listener because it’s all there to be interpreted. I think there’s something quite nice about not understanding the lyrics because people can just get lost in it. It becomes more subconscious rather than something where you’re really listening out for a word or whatever.

Were there any reference points for the record?

Yeah, well we’d been listening to Bo Hansson, this Swedish 70s prog artist, and to Alan Stivell, who’s a Breton artist. He’s a harpist, and a bit more new-agey. And Clannad. And Brenda Wootton was a massive influence as well. But a lot of these were things that I’d been brought up with and that I’d rejected, by just being a teenager going, “Right, I’m going to find something really synthetic and horrible just to react against the organic, folky, rustic feeling of music.” So it was about coming back round and really connecting with that music.

I wasn’t brought up on Anglo-American popular culture at all. Like, extremely not. I wasn’t allowed to watch English television – which was stupid – so I had no idea about English bands for a long time. And I definitely rejected that when I was younger, but now I quite like that because it’s a different narrative, and another expression of living in Britain.

The album title Le Kov translates from the Cornish as “the place of memory”. What’s the story behind that?

Well, it’s an oddity really that I’m a Cornish speaker and I live in Wales, even though historically there are strong connections between Welsh and Cornish. They come from the same strain of Celtic languages. I’ve always been brought up in cities or lived in cities, so my experience of Cornish was quite different to if I’d lived in Cornwall, which is quite a rural place. So I was then thinking about how to contextualise it.

I started reading about Lyonesse, which is just past St Michael’s Mount, off the west coast of Cornwall. There’s a legend that there was a land there where King Arthur lived, and then it sunk under the sea. And then there was another story that on the north coast of Cornwall there was this city called Langarrow which was a state that got drowned because it was too debauched. So there are a series of stories of sunken cities within the Celtic world. And I was like, “Brilliant, my city! That’s where I live!”

I wanted to imagine this place where it was a utopia where everyone spoke Cornish; a place where this record could exist because it didn’t exist in the real world because my experiences of Cornish were an oddity. I was reading Situationist texts that imagined a city where people didn’t have to work anymore and it would just be a place for pleasure. That’s what Le Kov is: it’s a city that’s accepting of everyone just existing and being happy.

My last record was very dystopian and I wanted to react to that. So instead of imagining a future which is awful – which we’re kind-of living in right now – maybe there’s room to imagine somewhere really warming and beautiful and loving, which is actually my own experiences of the Cornish community. Hence why there are songs about cheese on the album. (Laughs) There are highs and lows obviously, but I just wanted to have a sense of celebration as well.

You tackle Brexit on ‘Herdhya’. Obviously Brexit is something that Cornwall did overwhelmingly vote for despite the fact they stand to lose out economically. That’s an interesting juxtaposition, don’t you think?

So many factors were influential in why things turned out the way they did. A lot of it has to do with the existential crisis that the UK is going through anyway. Right now the UK is like that awful person at the party who’s not willing to deal with their own problems so they’re just getting really, really drunk and embarrassing instead. (Laughs)

Obviously, we’re all responsible for that, but I think there is an awesome opportunity creatively to have different conversations. I enjoy having creative conversations that don’t seem confrontational. I mean, I don’t have the ability to write a Brexit album, talking about how awful it is and the bureaucratic practicalities and the bad media and all of that. But I think there is quite an exciting opportunity to raise different points about why so many of us have influenced the negative outcome, and the motivation behind that.

I adore history and I think a lot of the right wing rhetoric is that England in the Middle Ages was just English, which obviously has never been the case because we’ve always been incredibly multicultural. So I just felt this was a way of expressing that creatively and celebrating Cornwall’s international-ness. And people aren’t taught their own local history in school, because there is this dominant narrative which is propaganda, tied to an empire that doesn’t exist anymore. For example, I didn’t even know Henry VIII was of Welsh descent through my teaching at school, which explains a lot to me about the way Welsh history panned out.

But with you addressing those ideas in Cornish, Le Kov never feels didactic.

Absolutely! And that’s the thing! Because having this conversation, that’s why I feel really lucky and excited to do what I do. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t put it into music. It really is about escapism as much as it is about confronting ideas. That’s what’s so amazing about music; it works on such a subconscious level that you get lost in it and it’s much more pleasant than having a conversation, almost.

[learnspanishfans]

How to Learn Swedish: 37 Lessons from My 6 Months Living in Sweden

When I realized I was going to have the chance to spend six months working in Sweden, I naturally got interested in the Swedish language. More so, when I started getting work emails I needed Google Translate to read. Even more so when I landed and couldn’t read the signs around me or understand anything people were saying. I decided I needed to learn Swedish. Towards the end of my time in Sweden, I went to Norway for the Starmus Science Festival. Stephen Hawking, moonwalkers and other astronauts, Nobel Prize winners and other intellectual stars lit up the stage in Trondheim, but I was struck linguistically by Norwegian. I knew it was similar to Swedish, but now I really 'got it'. It truly hit home that I'd learned some Viking. So, let’s dive in. Here’s a crash course in how to speak Swedish -- or as it could well be called: “how to learn Viking”. I went into this mission speaking English and German - and as Swedish is a Germanic language, I found this background knowledge really useful. Here are the 34 lessons I picked up in my time learning Swedish. Some of them are specific to Swedish, some of them will be useful for learning any language. Here goes:

How to Learn Swedish: The First Steps

Before you start learning a language, it’s best to find out about some of its features. This is so you can size up the challenge ahead, decide on a good strategy and jump in with some ‘feel’ for where you are headed. Lesson 1: Context is everything in language learning. Oddly, I was thrown in at the deep end but quite enjoyed it. One of the things with beginner language learning is that it’s well, so simple. That’s of course where you need to begin if you want to speak, but the meaty stuff comes farther along. My first exposure to Swedish was very advanced: emails from my University Department. The downside was that I couldn’t read hardly any of it, but the upside was that it was meaningful. I needed to understand these emails for my job. Lesson 2: Google Translate is your friend. I set about translating with Google Translate. I found it works pretty well but still makes some gaffs that you just have to look past. So, I knew I could rely on it as a tool, but only when taken with a grain of salt. Lesson 3: Look for cognates - the words you already know. Reading emails was a quick way of sizing up the types and numbers of cognates. Speaking both English and German, I had a good head start on Swedish, but was surprised how much of it looked ‘very different’. Lesson 4: Guess where you can - but take good note of when you guess wrong - and why. Often, when I compared my guesses to translations, I saw a lot of fuzz. Cognates I missed, especially because of the spelling and cognates I got wrong because they aren’t what they look like. My estimation of the challenge rose. Lesson 5: Use Google Translate’s audio feature. I used Google Translate to listen to my emails. My estimation of the difficulties of learning Swedish rose higher. What I was reading wasn’t looking a lot like what I was hearing. I was longing for good old German – where what you see is what you get. Lesson 6: Understand how well (or not) the spoken and written versions of your language match. I would learn much later that this in German what you see is what you get because the language was written down for the first time much later than Swedish. This means Swedish sounded one way when it was first written and is quite different today. Lesson 7: Keep note of all the words you’ve learned or want to learn. From Day 1, I took time to keep a digital record of the words I wanted to learn. I started a Google spreadsheet. Lesson 8: Focus on learning the words that matter to you - not what the phrasebooks tell you to learn. I built up a small and very specialist vocabulary specific to emails and my field. I learned to recognize words like nyheter (news), brev (letter), vidarebefordrat brev (forwarded email) Inbjudan (invitation), studenter (students) and phrases like Till alla medarbetare (to all employees). Lesson 9: Make a special effort to learn the “glue words.” I started to learn ‘the little words’. These ‘glue words’ occur so frequently, it’s best to learn straight off the bat. Three important glue words in Swedish are och (and), men (but) and “eller” (or). The sooner you conquer them, the better. Lesson 10: Two more essential glue words are en and ett. En is for animate and ett is for the inanimate definite article (a, an). Swedish condensed male and female a while back, which makes Swedish easier than German which retains the male, female, neuter (der, die, das) triumvirate. Lesson 11: Go with “en” when you’re unsure. I was told when in doubt go with en because it fits with some 85% of words. If people look at you funny, switch to ett. Lesson 12: There’s lots of romance in Swedish. Interestingly, I noted Swedish has a lot more romance language cognates than German. For example, “ice-cream” is glass, like the Italian glace, and “to write” is skriva. This makes Swedish an intriguing mix. I found out later this is due to an early influx from Latin and later from French. If you don’t already know a lot of French, this helps put into context unexpected letter combinations like fåtölj, from the French fauteuil, “armchair”. Lesson 13: Swedish word order is more akin to English than German. In fact, because of this, some say Norwegian is the easiest foreign language for an English speaker to learn. This is aided by the fact that Swedish is a subject-verb-object (SVO) like English, while German is SOV. Lesson 14: Adjectives come before nouns and are modified according to noun type (en or ett). Lesson 15: You’ll spend a lot of time on prepositions to get speaking idiomatic Swedish. Prepositions come before their nouns. This unlike a language such as Hindi, where they come after the noun. However, prepositions can be quite different in usage from their seeming equivalents in English. Lesson 16: While German capitalizes nouns, Swedish does not. In fact, it even drops caps from words we capitalize like nationalities, days of the week or months of the year. For example, on Sunday is på söndagen. Lesson 17: Immerse yourself as much as possible. With a dusting of recognition vocabulary, I hit the ground for a one-week visit. It confirmed just how widespread and beautifully spoken English is in Sweden. It can be hard to learn a new language in a country that speaks so much English, so well. Lesson 18: The first word to learn in any language is “thank you”. Then come the greetings “hello” and “goodbye”. I had long been saying ‘hey’ when I met friends, and I suddenly realized I fit into Sweden perfectly – hej is the primary greeting in Sweden. I felt more Swedish when I got to using hej hej and the same for thank you (tack). I now generally use tack tack. Lesson 19: Look for “cultural tokens” - words that you see all around you Along with the greetings, I managed to compile a list of the first 20 cultural tokens I encountered, like the famous köttbullar (meatballs) and kanelbullar (cinnamon rolls).

Learn to Speak Swedish: Living in Sweden

Lesson 20: Listen to all the words around you. Moving there, meant really trying to listen to Swedish, even though I only understood a little bit of what was being said. It was hard to escape the “English-bubble”, as most Swedish people speak fluent English, and would offer to speak with me in English. Lesson 21: Use what you know from other languages… to decipher as many cognates as possible. I decided to focus first on cracking the cognate patterns that would help me pick up the similarities to German as it would result in the quickest growth in my vocabulary and listening comprehension. For example, I saw betala in stores (on the cash register) and it took a bit to realize is it like bezahlen in German – to pay. Many of the cognates are shortened versions of the German (e.g. dropping of the ge- prefix). As I previously mentioned, there is also a lot of Latin in Swedish, so any knowledge you have of romance languages will come in useful too. Lesson 22: Don’t stick in your comfort zone of cognates forever. A huge turning point came being forced to do laundry in a communal room – I had to decipher the instructions for booking a time to use the machines: Ah! Those Norse words! The neighbour caught me using the wrong machine. Ah! Tvätt! My eyes missed the stickers on the washers saying tvätt 1 and tvätt 2. In typical Swedish fashion, he was incredibly nice and helpful and explained it means laundry. It was a eureka moment. I had to stop skipping those Viking words in favour of the more comfort-inducing German and French cognates. Lesson 23: Relish the unfamiliar. The Norse words became my favorites. Norse sticks out a mile for the wonderful letter combinations like: snygg (good looking), sjö (lake), kvinna (woman), pojke (boy). These are clearly north Germanic and not anything like the words you find in modern German. Lesson 24: Focus on a particular type of vocabulary you want to learn and build your specialist vocabulary. My second ‘breakthrough’ was to not try to be a vocabulary jack-of-all-trades. I went where it was natural to go: food. My practical exposure to Swedish was shopping for food, menus in cafes and my search for Swedish recipes. When you love something, it’s infinitely easier to stay motivated. Lesson 25: Enjoy the buzz when you’ve learned enough to recognize words in the real world. The first recipe I followed in Swedish was for a classic Swedish cheese pie! Because of this I got my first ‘word reward’, being able to read a sign for hot chocolate with cream in my favorite café. I’d just learned the word from cream (grädde). Things were starting to ‘add up’ – an excellent sign. Lesson 26: Make your phone support your learning. I invested in downloading the core Swedish vocabulary for Google Translate so I could use the image recognition feature to decode labels and recipes: as a treat, I would occasionally buy the glossy magazine Mat and Vin (Food and Wine), which I loved.

My Two Month Swedish Crash Course

After 8 weeks living in Sweden, I decided to take Swedish seriously and do my own “Swedish crash course”. Lesson 27: Set yourself a goal. I set myself a goal of two months to be able to ‘read Swedish’. For me, this meant understanding the ‘easy-Swedish’ on the news site 8sidor.se. This clear focus really helped. At first, I could read hardly anything on 8sidor.se. By week 6 I could read 75% of the content of stories and by week 7, I could do 100% on some. Today, for example, reading an article on Elton John, I only needed to look up hedrade (honoured), drabbas (suffer) and grindarna (gates) and I have gained a sense of familiarity with the language that is comforting even if I have a long way to go. Lesson 28: Give yourself a set amount of time per day. Short, intense bursts of focused concentration can prove invaluable, as long as you’re really able to concentrate. The crash course approach was my best phase of learning Swedish. I spent at least an hour a day, often more. Working intensively proved exponentially helpful as I saw words in many contexts in a short period of time. Intensive bursts of learning really help with reinforcement if you are consuming a wide range of materials. Lesson 29: Go for the top 1,000 words in your new language. I crammed vocabulary. Like an athletic boot camp, I conquered 1,000 of the easiest, highest frequency words. I used Quizlet flashcards. I’d listen and watch while commuting. It helps hugely to learn the high frequency words first: never waste your time on low frequency words until you’re ready for them. Lesson 30: Use online resources and videos. I learned off the web, especially YouTube, and focused on active listening: I looked for resources to help my listening, reading, and comprehension all at once. Lesson 31: ABBA! I found out that ABBA recorded in Swedish. In particular, I listened to “En av oss” over and over again watching with English subtitles. The vocabulary of the song “One of us” is helpfully simple and straightforward. For fun, I looked at a lot of lyrics in translation – they are different. I found they were quite different. Good to bear in mind if you know the English lyrics and expect to hear them verbatim in Swedish – you won’t. Lesson 32: The Swedish alphabet is different to English I learned there are 3 extra letters – it’s not an umlaut like in German (for a missing “e”) but three real letters at the end of the alphabet. The vowels are really complex in Swedish – and there are hard and soft versions. Swedish is what’s called a pitch language. This explains the unique second upturn in many words and gives the language its musical lilt Lesson 33: Knowing some grammar helps you make a lot more sense of what you’re reading. Learning grammar rules helped me distinguish words by their endings and thus significantly help with reading comprehension: One tricky aspect of Swedish is the lack of a word ‘the’, rather the definite article is appended to the end of each noun and is different in singular and plural. This takes some getting used to. Verbs are actually easier than English: there is no equivalent of ‘ing’, there are only five tenses, and verbs stay the same for all the pronouns. Passives ends in ‘s’ as do possessive forms of nouns. Adjectives have endings that match their nouns (based on en or ett). Adverbs never change – thank goodness something is static. Later I learned that many adverbs end in ‘t’. Lesson 34: Bring it all together with dialogue. Pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary all come together when listening to simple dialogues. I decided to focus to this video, Useful everyday phrases - Super Easy Swedish 1, subtitled in Swedish and English, to so some ‘deep learning’. This means comprehending to the point that you can hear the sentences in your head and recreate them, including with substitute words. This is the life-blood of speaking. Learning to Speak Swedish: Lessons with a Teacher My crash course over, I felt ready to start speaking with a Swedish teacher. I had gotten inside reading, but I wanted to pop the English-bubble in terms of speaking. Here’s what I learned with my teacher. Lesson 35: Read aloud to force yourself to speak… and improve your pronunciation. With my teacher’s help, I read aloud from books to work on pronunciation. This series of videos, “Träna att tala”, shows just how ‘red’ Swedish text can be when you mark up the differences between written and spoken Swedish. There was a lot to learn, but it helped immensely with my listening comprehension. Lesson 36: Learn basic sentences structures. I did this with both English and German sentences to see the extent of the difference - and the differences are numerous! Swedish really is a mix of German, English and a lot of its own stuff too (that Viking!). This exercise proved how different Swedish is to German and English, and created interesting challenges triangulating between English, German and novice spoken Swedish. Lesson 37: Make yourself a cheat sheet. During the last lesson, I created myself a ‘cheat sheet’ full of basic conversational statements and questions. The devil is in the details. In many ways, I ended where I should have started. Many people dispense with grammar and jump right to basic conversation but I would have been too curious about the “why’s” to sit still. And it left the best for last -- conversation.

My Next Step in Speaking Swedish: Towards ‘Talking to Learn’

Now that I’ve left Sweden, I would love to go back. I’m still trying to read the news in Swedish, and I’ve taken to watching Swedish movies with English subtitles. I can’t recommend “En man som heter Ove” highly enough. My next step is to pick up with my list of basic statements and questions and go from there, building up a core set of phrases and sentences I can say with confidence. I now have a vocabulary that far exceeds what I would have attained if I’d spent my time learning to speak basic touristic Swedish. I was just too keen to read ‘real world Swedish’ not to invest my time being a bookworm. After this long and enjoyable ‘prequel’, I’m prepped to get to my end goal of “talking to learn”. Are you learning Swedish? I’d love to hear about that. Tell me why you’re learning Swedish, and the steps you’re taking to learn in the comments.

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